Quick thoughts:
+ Noiri. He took care of business, finishing 3 opponents in spectacular fashion to take the tournament and becoming the new champion at 67.5 kg.
+ Noiri and Anpo tournament runs were great.
+ Props to Karimian for defeating Kyotaro. While the fight wasn't good and it's easy to dismiss it due to the circus surrounding it, Kyotaro is an accomplished fighter and defeating him is easily Karimian's biggest feet to date.
+ The sheer number of KO's and KD's even after just the first bunch of fights. Quality as well, not just quantity.
+ Hayashi/Sasaki was great! Technique, killer intent, back-and-forth knockdowns, the works. Definitely a FOTN contender.
+ The pure character Urabe showed for refusing to go down when he was clearly hurt and ready to go.
+ While I do feel like Kido/Yamauchi should have been placed earlier on the card, it was still a nice send-off for Yamauchi.
+ Matsuoka Riki was the surprise of the tournament for me. Not only did he beat Dwansonpong, but he tried to take the fight to Anpo as well.
+ Gunji/Niimi was a great brawl. The fight wasn't even on my radar before.
+ Anpo casually scoring another knockdown with the high switch kick. Thing of beauty.
- While I love these events, they are too long. I feel like 10-15 fights is the sweet spot. I don't mind a 20+ fights event once a year with K'Festa, but other than that I feel like K-1 should just do more events with less fights per card.
- Kyotaro/Karimian was not the quick fireworks I was hoping from it. Kyotaro looked bad, the fight was weird, judging as well. My biggest surprise though, was that Kyotaro was the one getting rocked during exchanges while Karimian never got seriously hurt. And he took some big shots.
- The event's pacing took a bit of a hit with Ishii/Aitaka before and Kido/Yamauchi after the intermission, which was not unpredictable.
- Ishii fighting for Team CroCop without having CroCop in his corner feels like a missed opportunity. Also he should just shave his head.
- Ozawa/Kunieda wasn't the best fight.
Overall just another great K-1 card which I wish was a bunch of fights shorter. Can't wait to rewatch some stuff in better quality.
On a sidenote I joined the BeyondKick Discord server and watched the event that way, because I didn't feel like dealing with VPN shenanigans. Aside from some technical issues - Discord doesn't have the most user friendly UI and the stream was a bit inconsistent - it worked out pretty well. Everybody in the chat was super nice too. Saw some familiar names in there.
Also while Ishii/Aitaka was not the most exciting fight, I do think Ishii may have some potential. At least in K-1's HW division where they focus more on brawlers.
Also a question; why was Noiri so hostile towards Anpo? Was there a lot of trashtalking/bad blood leading up to this?
