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Post by K1power on Jan 2, 2021 13:59:23 GMT 1
 Due to the pandemic we've had a lot fewer events in 2020. This should make it easier to come up with any picks since there is a lot less to remember and select from. That said we'll be doing this in similar fashion to previous years. Before starting off with my own picks I'd like to see what you guys thought of the year. Here are some categories to help you get started: - Fight(s) Of The Year- Upset(s) Of The Year- Fighter(s) Of The Year- Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year- Knockout(s) Of The Year- Comeback(s) Of The Year- Controversy(s) Of The Year- Event(s) Of The Year- Story(s) Of The YearYou can name a single favorite, do rankings or just share something that stood out to you in 2020. We'll be doing this for kickboxing, MMA and boxing. Let's kick this off! PS: It should go without saying, but Muay Thai and other kickfighting picks are welcome as well. |
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Post by Fox on Jan 2, 2021 18:42:44 GMT 1
Fight otY: Petmorakot vs Yodsanklai (if Im allowed to pick that)
Upset otY: Yamazaki vs Anpo
Fighter otY: Maybe Tenshin just because he fought a few times.
Breakout fighter: Jamal Yusupov although it really started last year
KO otY: Nong-O vs Rotlek
Comeback and story otY: Benny getting off the floor to KO Badr.
Event otY: ONE: No Surrender
Controversy: well it was all outside the ring lol
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lero
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Post by lero on Jan 3, 2021 0:23:19 GMT 1
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Post by K1power on Jan 3, 2021 14:58:47 GMT 1
Fight otY: Petmorakot vs Yodsanklai (if Im allowed to pick that) Breakout fighter: Jamal Yusupov although it really started last year KO otY: Nong-O vs Rotlek Will have to look up those fights as I haven't seen them. It's not that I don't like MT BTW. I like all martial arts / prize fighting, but between my main focus being on kickboxing and time spent on other hobbies there's a very limited amount of time left for me to keep up-to-date with MMA, boxing etc. I believe I have watched a Yusupov fight at some point in 2020, though. |
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Post by Fox on Jan 3, 2021 17:58:25 GMT 1
Fight otY: Petmorakot vs Yodsanklai (if Im allowed to pick that) Breakout fighter: Jamal Yusupov although it really started last year KO otY: Nong-O vs Rotlek Will have to look up those fights as I haven't seen them. It's not that I don't like MT BTW. I like all martial arts / prize fighting, but between my main focus being on kickboxing and time spent on other hobbies there's a very limited amount of time left for me to keep up-to-date with MMA, boxing etc. I believe I have watched a Yusupov fight at some point in 2020, though. All of them are fights from ONE championship where there are lots of kickboxing fights. Its almost like they just flip a coin to see if it will be MT or KB. To further muddy the waters sometimes they use MMA gloves and sometimes they fight in a cage. So sometimes I show up for a KB fight and get a MT one and vice versa. Makes it hard to separate them for me lol |
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Post by K1power on Jan 3, 2021 19:02:05 GMT 1
Same here. It's why I list fights from cards with mixed rules as 'kickfighting' when I post notifiers.
That covers all stand-up rulesets aside from straight-up boxing.
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Post by kickboxer (Banned) on Jan 4, 2021 11:54:17 GMT 1
For me only kickboxing, in Glory, ONE and Europe/Romania.
- Fight(s) Of The Year: Benny Adegbuyi vs. Badr Hari - Upset(s) Of The Year: Benjamin Adegbuyi knocking Badr Hari out (mention: Jamies Bates defeating by UD Harut Grigorian) - Fighter(s) Of The Year: Roman Kryklia (mention: Superbon) - Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year: Călin Petrișor (mention: Gabriel Bozan)
- Knockout(s) Of The Year: Călin Petrișor (vs. Corbeanu II) - Comeback(s) Of The Year: Sorin Căliniuc (mention: Andy Souwer) - Controversy(s) Of The Year: no idea, in Lăpușneanu vs. Trif, Lăpușneanu got deducted because of weight, and in Plazibat vs. Mahieddine maybe the television scorecard was wrong
- Event(s) Of The Year: Colosseum Tournament 22 (by far) - Story(s) Of The Year: Benny Adegbuyi vs. Badr Hari |
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shkibb
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Post by shkibb on Jan 4, 2021 20:11:21 GMT 1
My picks are going to be restricted to K-1 and RISE, since those fights are the ones that I watch the most and have the best knowledge of. I do watch some ONE and Glory but I am not real familiar with those orgs.
Fight(s) Of The Year : Minoru Kimura vs Himalayan Cheetah / Ryusei Ashizawa vs Kotaro Shimano (Both action packed, competitive and exciting fights)
Upset(s) Of The Year : Taio Asahisa vs Kenta Hayashi (Asahisa beats K-1 champ on 4 days notice & out of regular weight class)
Fighter(s) Of The Year : Kento Haraguchi (5 wins in 2020)
Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year : Taio Asahisa (Establishes himself as a true title contender)
Knockout(s) Of The Year : Hideaki Yamazaki vs Anpo Rukiya (Who expected this ?)
Comeback(s) Of The Year : Yuta Kubo (Defeated Jordann Pikeur after injuries and a 1 year layoff)
Controversy(s) Of The Year : KFesta 3 being held with spectators despite the Corona virus restrictions
Event(s) Of The Year : KFesta 3
Story(s) Of The Year : Retirement of Yoshiki Takei (Shocking)
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Post by K1power on Jan 6, 2021 16:36:13 GMT 1
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Post by K1power on Jan 6, 2021 16:38:36 GMT 1
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Post by K1power on Jan 21, 2021 18:53:49 GMT 1
It's here! Steven 'Warman' Wright's 2020 in KickFighting:
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Post by K1power on Apr 8, 2021 19:29:54 GMT 1
So I'm finally doing my picks for the kickboxing version of this thread.
Without further ado, here goes:
- Fight(s) Of The Year
Yamazaki Hideaki vs. Anpo Rukiya 2
A rematch in the making since 2018, Yamazaki was going for the kill from the get go. Perhaps not a competitive war, but an awesome performance by a guy you just want to root for.
Nordine Mahieddine vs. Antonio Plazibat 2
Another rematch, this one in the making since 2019, but now Mahieddine was able to take revenge. The call for an extra round was bogus, but in the end the right man won after an awesome battle.
But this is just a sample size, really. There were many more awesome fights throughout 2020 - a lot more than you would expect from a year that saw so many events get cancelled. In that sense I guess we still somehow got lucky.
- Upset(s) Of The Year
Benjamin Adegbuyi defeats Badr Hari - Regardless of circumstances, this is a big win for Benny.
Vladimir Idranyi defeats Jason Wilnis - Wilnis was ahead on points after the first two rounds, but was a bit careless in the third and got dropped twice.
Tsubakihara Tatsuya defeats Egawa Yuuki - While it was a close decision, Tsubakihara getting past Egawa was not something I saw as a possibility.
Kotomi defeats Kana - A very close fight that I wouldn't have guessed Kana would even come close to losing.
- Fighter(s) Of The Year
Yamazaki Hideaki - 3 fights, 3 KO's with the third one including both taking revenge on Anpo Rukiya and winning the belt.
Kimura 'Philip' Minoru - 4 fights, 4 TKO victories. Perhaps not all his fights were high profile, but his activity level puts him above most in a year where it was hard to get fights to begin with.
- Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year
Levi Rigters - While he was on my radar before signing with Glory, Rigters definitely put himself on the map in 2020. The tournament he won was clearly rigged in his favor, but that's not his fault.
Abiral 'Himalayan Cheetah' - Abiral made a splash by looking good in defeat against Kimura and I'm glad K-1 invited him back.
- Knockout(s) Of The Year
Yamazaki Hideaki vs. Anpo Rukiya 2
Abdifatah Khalif vs. Korede Lawrence
Kimura 'Philip' Minoru vs. Eder Lopes
Asahisa Taio vs. Hiroki
There were many more great knockouts in 2020, but I thought these are some standouts worth highlighting.
- Comeback(s) Of The Year
Comebacks can be divided into several subcategories, usually involving a fighter coming back from retirement/injury/a slump/within a fight, but for 2020 we can add promotions making a comeback after an extended period without events. So I'm going to try and make some picks for all of the above.
K-1 coming back with the Osaka GP 6 months after K'Festa 3. Both events were awesome.
Glory coming back with Glory 76 no less than after 10 months after Glory 75 with a whole lot of drama inbetween, including bankruptcy and a swift resurrection.
Happy for Taiga that he was able to end his three fight losing streak with a victory over Yamahata Yuma.
If we're talking comeback within a fight I'm probably going with Adegbuyi. Getting up from that knockdown from Badr and winning by KO was impressive.
While it was technically only the announcement in 2020, it's great to finally see Kyotaro back in K-1/kickboxing.
On that note, Raul Catinas also announced his comeback by signing with Glory.
Honorable mention: It was good seeing Errol Zimmerman return to kickboxing after two years. Unfortunately he wasn't able to defeat Rade Opacic in his ONE debut.
- Story(s) / Controversy(s) Of The Year
So I've grouped stories and controversies together, because just like in MMA there is a lot of overlap here.
And there were multiple big stories:
- COVID-19 and its influence on the kickboxing landscape
Around February we saw the first effects of COVID on kickboxing when several events in China were postponed. As the weeks went by, shows all around Asia were being rescheduled or cancelled altogether.
This brings us to our first big controversy.
By late March, amidst increasing global concerns and restrictions, there was one huge event that was not getting rescheduled; K'Festa. While safety precautions were taken, this event had thousands of attendees and it's a miracle nobody got sick. By all accounts, this event should not have happened. At least not in the capacity it was held. K-1 got extremely lucky here, but at least they came to their senses as their next Krush event was held without an audience.
And so the year progressed; now events were getting postponed or cancelled on a global level. The few events that actually went through did so in a more limited capacity with no or very small audiences and a lot of initially scheduled fights ended up falling through.
Due to opportunities drying up in kickboxing, an increasing amount of fighters started to look at MMA as a viable alternative, since it wasn't affected quite as badly as kickboxing. Tyjani Beztati and Yousri Belgaroui come to mind, just to name a couple of examples.
At a certain point Remy Bonjasky was quoted, saying he is 'afraid kickboxing is going the same way as karate'. While I personally disagree with that statement on more than one level, I definitely understand where it's coming from and share at least some of the concern.
On top of decimating the amount of events and thinning out the talent pool, COVID also affected fighters that contracted it.
Badr Hari is the first who comes to mind; he got very sick before his fight with Benjamin Adegbuyi and as far as I'm concerned it clearly showed in his performance. You don't want to think about the very real possibility of these effects being permanent.
All in all, COVID did a number on kickboxing and we're not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.
- Glory's bankruptcy and ressurection
When Glory 76 didn't happen in March while the pandemic was spreading its wings, people didn't really ask questions and it got quiet around the promotion for a while. The silence lasted until May, when Marshall Zelaznik resigned as Glory's CEO. While it was a puzzling bit of news - Zelaznik had only been with Glory for two years - people weren't really drawing major conclusions yet.
After Zelaznik's resignation it got quiet around Glory once again. People were wondering when the next event would be announced, but most seemed to believe the silence was a result of COVID, since Glory still had very active social media channels. This went on for a while until the start of July, when reports started coming out that Glory was on its last legs.
Apparently Glory had been in trouble for quite a while and COVID affecting their schedule was the straw that broke the camel's back. Despite the reports, Glory wasn't quite finished though; by exploiting some legal loopholes the promotion was quickly back into 'new' old hands, with tons of people being owed money left hanging out to dry.
So with that whole situation playing out Glory 76 was finally held in December.
While it's good for kickboxing that Glory is still around, tons of people got royally screwed in the process. Hell, the ISKA denied Glory a license to hold events in the Netherlands because of it. Furthermore, some of the biggest snakes still hold high functions within Glory, which is something I'm not okay with.
- Reports popping up about ONE's shady business practices
Roughly halfway through 2020, ONE started making headlines again. And this time it wasn't about big name signings. It was about how ONE's actual financial numbers completely contradicted their public statements about being 'equals to the UFC'. Total accumulated losses reached an all-time high and the fight community was left speculating about how long ONE has left as a promotion.
While this wasn't the first time ONE's questionable business practices came under public scrutiny, it was the latest and perhaps most telling episode that things weren't exactly looking 'good under the hood'. Alas, to be continued...
- Glory rigging the G76 Heavyweight tournament
Glory's undeniable rigging of the tournament in Levi Rigter's favor was a very bad look for the promotion. I wouldn't even put the call for the Mahieddine/Plazibat extra round past them.
- DFS robbing Pavel Voronin of what was a clear victory over Andrei Stoica
Voronin won that fight. There really isn't much room for discussion here. At least they're doing a rematch.
- Branko Cikatić passing away at 65
The bit in this topic that always depresses me is when I'm going through a year's threads and am reminded of those we lost. After struggling with his health for the past few years, Branko Cikatić passed away in March of 2020 at age 65.
RIP Champ.
- Event(s) Of The Year
K'Festa 3 - An event that, frankly, should not have happened. The wise decision would have been to postpone it or at least scale it down. With that said, it was the best event of the year. The fights were fantastic and the event offered some normalcy during an abnormal time filled with uncertainty.
K-1 World GP in Osaka - Probably the only event that can somewhat rival K'Festa.
Honorable mentions:
Any of the other K-1 events held throughout the year.
Yangames Fight Night 8 - This event came and went quietly, but deserves a bit of attention. Yangames put on solid fights with some pretty big names in the middle of the pandemic. Additionally, the crowd was small and the event was held outside. My only complaint here is that there was no social distancing nor people wearing masks.
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So here we have it folks. My 2020 picks. I thought they would be a bit easier to write down with substantially less events taking place, but all the drama going on more than made up for the deficit. Oh well...
If you've somehow made it through my ramblings I am sorry, but that time is lost forever.
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