K-1 WORLD GP 2022 in Tokyo [27-02] Results

[K1power]

Fightcard
Takeru vs. Gunji Taito - Exhibition Fight
Asahisa Taio vs. Yoza Yuki
Kana vs. Ran
Sasaki Daizo vs. Vitor Toffanelli
Abiral Himalayan Cheetah vs. Matsushita Daiki
Ashizawa Ryusei vs. Nishimoto Narufumi
Urabe Hirotaka vs. Shimano Kotaro
Takanashi 'knuckle' Miho vs. Yuka
Yamagiwa Kazuki vs. Nakano Kota
Jinbo Katsuya vs. Danilo Zanolini
Ozawa Kaito vs. Kumura Shihei
Kawarada Shuji vs. Shinohara Yuto
Kurata Eiki vs. Eruto
Kosuke vs. "Kyoken" Jin
Furumiya Haru vs. Shimomura Taihei
Amano Sota vs. Tanaka Satoshi
Okubo Rui vs. Nishibayashi Shohei

55KG Tournament
Sasaki Junki vs. Ryuka
Kumura Masashi vs. Kiyama Momotaro
Riamu vs. Ikko
Kaneko Akihiro vs. Kuroda Yuto

www.k-1.co.jp/schedule/16551/

[K1power]

55KG Tournament announced:



Assuming the TBA slots wil go to foreign fighters.

We have some other fights as well.

[K1power]

[K1power]

Happening this Sunday!

They really need to slash these cards in half, turn em into more events.

[K1power]

Full Results

55kg Tournament
Kaneko Akihiro defeats Kumura Masashi by Majority Decision
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Kumura Masashi defeats Sasaki Junki by KO R1
Kaneko Akihiro defeats Riamu by KO R2
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Sasaki Junki defeats Uchida Sho by Unanimous Extra Round Decision
Kumura Masashi defeats Kiyama Momotaro by KO R1
Riamu defeats Ikko by Unanimous Decision
Kaneko Akihiro defeats Kuroda Yuto by KO R3

Tournament Reserve Bout
Kurata Eiki defeats Eruto by KO R1

Takeru and Gunji Taito fought each other in a Special Exhibition Match

Superfights
Yoza Yuki defeats Asahisa Taio by Unanimous Extra Round Decision
Kana defeats Ran by Unanimous Decision
Sasaki Daizo defeats Vitor Toffanelli by Unanimous Decision
Abiral Himalayan Cheetah defeats Matsushita Daiki by KO R1
Ashizawa Ryusei defeats Nishimoto Narufumi by KO R2
Shimano Kotaro defeats Urabe Hirotaka by KO R3
Takanashi 'knuckle' Miho defeats Yuka by Split Decision
Nakano Kota defeats Yamagiwa Kazuki by Unanimous Extra Round Decision
Jinbo Katsuya defeats Danilo Zanolini by Unanimous Decision
Kumura Shuhei defeats Ozawa Kaito by Unanimous Decision
Shinohara Yuto defeats Kawarada Shuji by Unanimous Decision
Satomi Yuzuki defeats Ryuka by Split Extra Round Decision
"Kyoken" Jin defeats Kosuke by KO R3
Furumiya Haru defeats Shimomura Taihei by Unanimous Decision
Tanaka Satoshi defeats Amano Sota by KO R3
Okubo Rui defeats Nishibayashi Shohei by Unanimous Decision

www.k-1.co.jp/result/16551/

[K1power]

Had some chores lined up so I haven't watched any of it yet, but I'm hoping to catch up as soon as the footage becomes available.

Looking at the results there's a good number of KO's in there, but also quite a few extra round decisions.

Asahisa Taio lost, but it was a superfight? They really need to stop doing that no-title-on-the-line BS.

[lero]

Masashi Kumura vs Kaneko FOTY

[K1power]

Event has made it to K-1's YouTube channel, so will catch up and give my thoughts.

Also, here are the KD/KO highlights:

[lero]

Even the preliminary fights were crazy. Watching the hell out of it

[K1power]

I FINALLY worked my way through all the fights and what can I say other than what an amazing event.

We're still only in April, but this is easily the event of the year so far. Hell, the prelims alone were better than all of Glory 80. I have a hard time seeing how any event can top this one in 2022. This even rivals my favorite events from 2021. 25 fights and not a single stinker in there. Absolutely insane.

Took some notes during/after each fight:

55KG Tournament
Final - Kaneko Akihiro vs. Kumura Masashi - Shockingly good fight. Was clapping during parts of this one as well. both Kaneko and Kumura gave everything they had and it was Kaneko's knockdown that won him the fight. Keep in mind that Kaneko fought almost 8 full, very high paced rounds with absolutely 0 signs of slowing down. This is a prime example of why tournament victories will always be more impressive to me than any (set of) single fight victories.
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SF#2 - Kumura Masashi vs. Sasaki Junki - Short but sweet. While Kumura made quick work of Sasaki, I felt like Sasaki was landing some good stuff before he was finished. Kumura took care of business, though.
SF#1 - Kaneko Akihiro vs. Riamu - A more competitive fight than I expected, but halfway through the second round you could tell Kaneko was starting to hurt Riamu. Nice that the knockdown to end it was a lowkick.
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QF#4 - Sasaki Junki vs. Uchida Sho - Uchida landed some great shots early on that under slightly different circumstances would have been ruled as knockdowns. That said, Sasaki took everything Uchida threw at him and scored with a lot of stuff on his own, growing into the fight. Sasaki essentially won the extra round by being more physically imposing.
QF#3 - Kumura Masashi vs. Kiyama Momotaro - You could pretty much tell from the get go the either a left hook to the head or a body shot was going to end this. Very powerful finish from Kumura over Kiyama, who didn't really have a chance to get into the fight.
QF#2 - Riamu vs. Ikko - Very close, competitive fight. Ikko may have lost, but he gave Riamu a run for his money. I was really impressed with Riamu's evasiveness.
QF#1 - Kaneko Akihiro vs. Kuroda Yuto - What a KO! Despite the high pace of the fight I wasn't really expecting a finish like that.

Tournament Reserve Fight
Kurata Eiki vs. Eruto - That finish was BRUTAL. I feel Eruto wanted to put on a flashy performance and it prevented him from finding his rhythm whereas Kurata kept his cool and landed the actual killer shots. Surprised Eruto got up as quickly as he did from that high kick.

Exhibition Fight
Takeru vs. Gunji Taito - Awesome. As far as I'm concerned you really can't call these glorified sparring sessions as both Takeru and Gunji were trying to take each other's heads off. Also Gunji wasn't there to make Takeru look good as he probably landed the best shots overall. It was very competitive though. If this is an appetizer of what Takeru/Tenshin will be like, I'm all in.

Superfights
Yoza Yuki vs. Asahisa Taio - Fantastic fight. I was literally clapping during the extra round. Yoza impressive from the start, consistently messing with Asahisa's balance. Asahisa improved enough during the fight to even out the score, but Yoza had done a lot of damage to Asahisa throughout the fight, the results of which were showing during the extra round.
Kana vs. Ran - Another fun women's fight. Ran did great against Kana, crazy that she's just 19 years old. As for Kana, I loved that knockdown she scored in the 2nd round. Such a nice shot. Was close to scoring another one in the 3rd.
Sasaki Daizo vs. Vitor Toffanelli - Fun fight. Toffanelli starting out perhaps a little bit too eager, got countered and went down. From that moment on he was playing catchup while Sasaki was comfortable picking his shots.
Abiral Himalayan Cheetah vs. Matsushita Daiki - Short, but sweet. Matsushita came after Abiral hard right from the get go. He even looked faster, but his defense was non-existent and Abiral carefully picked his counter shots and it was over in no time.
Ashizawa Ryusei vs. Nishimoto Narufumi - Wild second round! I feel like Nishimoto could have taken this if he didn't lose his cool and avoided getting caught up in exchanges with Ashizawa. Either way, good on Ashizawa for completely turning things around within the same round.
Shimano Kotaro vs. Urabe Hirotaka - Fun competitive fight. Good victory for Shimano, though perhaps the stoppage was a bit early. Hirotaka is on a 4 fight losing streak and while he still had dangerous moments here, he's lost too much speed and explosiveness to rely on single kill shots.
Takanashi 'knuckle' Miho vs. Yuka - Surprisingly entertaining women's fight. Probably the first time I thought of Takanashi as above average. She doesn't really show any head movement and will happily take a shot to land something of her own, but she's just constantly throwing stuff and mixes things up. Yuka looked good here as well and got better as the fight progressed.
Nakano Kota vs. Yamagiwa Kazuki - Fun fight, but it did get increasingly clinchy as it progressed.
Jinbo Katsuya vs. Danilo Zanolini - Surprisingly fun brawl!
Kumura Shuhei vs. Ozawa Kaito - Good entertaining fight. Ozawa always came across to me as if he's a bit full of himself, but I liked that he gave Kumura some words of encouragement when he was crying, despite having just lost to him.
Shinohara Yuto vs. Kawarada Shuji - Good fight
Satomi Yuzuki vs. Ryuka - Good fight
"Kyoken" Jin vs. Kosuke - "Kyoken" Jin / Kosuke was solid as well. Jin may not be very sportsmanlike, but he's talented. Still not entirely sure what he hurt Kosuke with. With how delayed he went down I'd guess the body punch, but that's not really what it looked like.
Furumiya Haru vs. Shimomura Taihei - That Furumiya kid really impressed me. Fighting with a hearing disability and defeating a solid opponent in Shimomura is no joke.
Tanaka Satoshi vs. Amano Sota - Amano started out strong, but once Tanaka started taking over in round 2 he showed a lot of heart.
Okubo Rui vs. Nishibayashi Shohei - Good competitive opening fight.

I think a star was born with Kaneko here. Outstanding performance, results and an attractive fighting style. Perhaps a second star emerged with Kumura. Of course we've seen him before, but this tournament really put him on the map as well.

I noticed that most prelim fights had a beltholder in it. Not sure if those were from smaller promotions or just amateur belts, but the level of the fights sure was high.

There were barely any blowout fights, which indicated better matchmaking.

My only real complaint here is that the event was too damn long, especially considering all the decisions/extra rounds.
This easily could have been split up into two GREAT events or even three solid, smaller ones.

As a random aside, who was the elder ring lady we saw early in the event? Just wondering.

Either way, couldn't have watched a better thing to hype me up for K'Festa which I'm very much looking forward to, but expect a different vibe from.

[shkibb]

I agree with you on what a great event this was. The tournament was excellent.

The older ring "lady" you are asking about is actually a man. His name is Akihiro Miwa, a Japanese actor, singer and drag queen. I have no idea why K-1 had him there, but I guess he's quite popular in Japan and well known.

[K1power]

Haha only in Japan.

I guess watching only the fights without any inbetween stuff makes you miss a lot of context - even though the event was quite lengthy when even just watching the fights.