K-1 WORLD GP 2022 in Osaka [03-12] Results

[vampiro]

I followed K-1 back in the day. I know who Kyotaro is. I was VERY confident Sattari would beat him comfortably, but enough of my clairvoyance.

This is where I vent as a fan of both Mahmoud and K-1 lol..

The Kyotaro fight is where I knew Sattari would struggle once they started inviting foreigners in to fight at 90 kg, especially considering Mahmoud has said his ideal weight is closer to 80-85 kg (he cuts no weight in K-1). Kyotaro ate some big shots and its not like hes massive compared to Mahmoud. I noticed that Uchida was moving Sattari around the ring with pretty basic pressure, and the felling blow wasn't even that hurtful to him. He took it, got up, but it was waved off.

K-FESTA and THE MATCH is where Mahmoud started to get popular on social media. He lives in Minato, Tokyo with his Japanese wife (or its at least speculated he has a Japanese wife), and speaks Japanese at a rate where Japanese are surprised he's only been studying for two years, behaves in a manner to where Japanese people say he's more Japanese than Japanese. His videos on his channel, and especially the ones where he's collaborating with Kai Asakura..

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.. have taken his popularity to a good level. He showed a good personality, and was riding a wave of momentum into this fight. He's being promoted as one of K-1s 'NEXT' candidates. The whole marketing campaign around Osaka was to showcase Kumura, Kaneko, KANA, Sattari, and more.

*sigh*

So why would you, when you have your flagship event, K-FESTA, coming up in March, match a potential red hot foreigner who lives in your country, speaks your language, appeals to your people with an unproven, heavyweight slimming down to cruiserweight, who can't speak English let alone Japanese, who isn't even under contract with you, and who has knocked out people far bigger than Sattari?

Takumi Nakamura may love K-1, but he has no fucking idea how to protect his brand or an asset. You couldn't hold off a potential disaster with your only 90 kg star by waiting another year at least? His contract is up next year unless he chooses to re-sign, and I know he wants to try mma (he will not do well there). Feed to him to somebody then after getting your monies worth out of him. He did this shit in the summer with Kompetch and Kumura, who took an unnecessary loss, except this is way worse. The lasting impression now, which is fair I suppose, is that Mahmoud is a can crusher (to be fair a lot of Japanese social media is still behind him). The 'Japanese can't do heavyweight' comments were always there amongst Japanese K-1 fans, and comparisons were being drawn to Minoru Kimura, only people liked Mahmoud a lot so it wasn't a big deal to them that he was destroying Japanese cruisers.

I know we shouldn't be pushing for kickboxing to become like boxing, but it's like K-1 doesn't want to make any bankable stars, and Japan is the only market that actually gives a shit about this sport.

Rant over, and I'm happy to be here.

[K1power]

Not sure about Japan being the only market that cares about kickboxing.

The sport has gotten pretty big over here in recent years to the point where mainstream media is covering it on a daily basis. Granted a lot of that is based on Badr and Rico, but that only drives home further that you need some local stars.

One of K-1's problems is that it's invisble outside of Japan. If you're a casual viewer, you may know who Peter Aerts and Ernesto Hoost are from the EuroSport era, but you wouldn't have a clue K-1 is still around today (albeit under different ownership and different business model).

If FEG K-1 was around in the here and now with all the European stars they had, I'm confident it would have been much bigger than it was 10-20 years ago.

Aside from that I didn't know Sattari was a social media star in Japan, so from that perspective it was a dumb decision to put him up against a much larger European fighter. I guess K-1's insurance was not to make this a title fight, altough I hate that they keep doing that.

Personally I don't mind Sattari getting crushed like he did aside from it making the division look like a joke. I have nothing against Sattari - I have no clue about his personality - but very much felt his record made him look better than he is.

The silver lining of this situation of this is that it puts Sattari with both feet on the ground again and, perhaps, nip those 'let's try MMA' ambitions in the bud. Also, it should put K-1 in a more advantageous position come contract renegotiations.

[vampiro]

I talked about K-1 before, but I actually put blame on Mahmoud too. I have often wondered why he trains at UFC Gym. It's him and Mehrdad Sayyadi. Two fighters. Peter Aerts attends the gym to help Mahmoud a bit, but I have never felt Mahmoud fit what Peter was trying to teach him. I am a fan, but I'm not deluded. He's a boxer who happens to be a kickboxer. You can see it in his style. He utilised more kicks when he trained at Weerasakrek, but his kicks were always ineffective to me.

He still trains with Valo Carrero despite Valo being at Shimokita Gym now, but I don't see what Valo has added to his game. The only reason he recently started visiting Shinji Takehara's gym is because his YouTube assistant Shun has trained there and helped Shinji become up to date as a former Japanese boxing icon turned YouTube social media star in his own right. ABEMA has been interested in the Sattari-Takehara collabs too, especially after Hoost and Sattari collaborated there. It's also where Minoru Kimura trains now.

The links I posted.. I think you can see Sattari is enjoying himself, and maybe a little too much (especially the one in the restaurant where he is guzzling wine lol). I think he is in the same dilemma the Asakura's found themselves in; YouTube success while being an active fighter. I don't think it helps he is in a weight predicament. I didn't like the fight for him because of the weight and Mahmoud's style. I could see the lack of power against Kyotaro and Uchida, the latter whom I thought had the right idea of how to fight Sattari. Latescu brought the physicality and took away the space Mahmoud (and I'm assuming Valo) likes to have when fighting, and that the others were not able to do.

I don't know how he will react to the loss overall. He kept repeating he made a mistake and will watch the footage back during his post fight interview. I have heard worse from beaten fighters. It's obviously very hurtful to him, and being concussed probably doesn't help. The only mistake he made was taking the fight.

I don't know how many viewers watched this event, but Latescu and Sattari were top trends on Twitter for most of the day over there, and their are lots of people shocked. It gives you an idea of the perception of Mahmoud, which I, even as a big fan, always thought was undeserved, but understandable.

[K1power]

Haven't watched any of your links yet, but will check some out later.

As far as perception over here goes, among the few Dutch reactions I've seen so far are a news article about Karimian winning by DQ and a forum post saying "The Sattari hype is finished. Hopefully K-1 invites more foreign fighters and stops limiting itself to midget weightclasses."

Unfortunately a lot of Western fans have absolutely no respect for divisions below 65kg.

[alchemy (Banned)]

Dec 3, 2022 12:52:29 GMT 1 K1power said:

 
- Latescu murdering Sattari really exposes how weak K-1's rosters above 70kg are, because Latescu isn't even a blip on anyone's radar in Europe. I'm still baffled Kyotaro lost to Sattari. 


Kyotaro is easily the most accomplished Japanese HW alongside Musashi and Satake.



He should beat Sattari an Karimian blindfolded. 


I thought there was a chance of Sattari losing to Latescu. Not like this, though. Latescu has been struggling against old veterans and chubby fellow Romanians, not someone I'd pick to be the future of heavyweights. To be fair, he's only 20 and now he's made Sattari's unbeaten record look padded. I hope Latescu will be back and we start seeing more Western fighters in K-1's heavier divisions. Otherwise becoming a K-1 champion will be seen as a stepping stone when it should be the dream. But I'm obviously biased.

Aside from that I didn't know Sattari was a social media star in Japan, so from that perspective it was a dumb decision to put him up against a much larger European fighter. I guess K-1's insurance was not to make this a title fight, altough I hate that they keep doing that.

Not all connoisseurs have the same opinions, but I talked to many followers and they see Latescu as the most promising light heavyweight under the sun. At 95, can't he match Micheletti? Maybe already. He can even match Maslobojev in the future, being only 20 years old. Only Donegi Abena among the youngest has better (or not better) potential. But he seems to stagnate, even though he really took many hard fights.

As some Japanese have said, Sattari may have lost to a Fedor.

Kyotaro was better than Musashi but he got old fast. And look at the match with Sattari and Sattari's matches. Technically and in terms of speed, Sattari looks sensational. Karimian, I don't know what league he is in and we will see.

You know, fighters improve. Apart from Mailat and Poturak, Latescu has another 10 matches against good level opponents. At only 18-19 years old.

For some reason, he did not have much physical training, although he is the national Olympic boxing champion in all age categories, including U22 seniors. And several times.

Fans usually don't think in terms of evolution, but of the talent they see in an athlete on a given day.



I think that if Holland gathers all the promising heavyweights, it doesn't gather half as much as Romania. And keep in mind that Romania is also in decline in the HW, but young people have a different mentality, other coaches and other teams, and they can progress enormously through work.

I don't understand how you can make jokes about Iancu, how long he lost weight and toned up, although he will keep a Ruiz physique. He's about 23 years old, he's megatalented and definitely better than Lazaar in terms of movement and even boxing. And future. Even if he has some problems now with injuries.

If you want to see a match of heavyweight quality, Ristea vs. Iancu, even if Iancu fought injured and was not well prepared anyway!



Ristea, at least these days, from the newer generation, is the best heavyweight in Romania (apart from Cozmanca; and I don't count the old generation of Adegbuyi, Stoicas and Catinas). Bchiri stagnated or even went down, and he didn't even keep his physique. Ristea's tempo only increased.



Florin Ivanoaie, for example, he is a still young heavyweight who you used to see taking a beating from Iancu or Latescu, he has also progressed enormously in the last year. From a losing streak to a 5 or 6 winning streak. Ivanoaie is not even fully pro.

For those who watch the fights and are not ignorant, they will see that they are attractive matches and there is quality.

I still can't explain why even after the matches with Langlois-Ross and especially Tevette, you have the same opinion about Latescu.

I have Dutch friends who told me that they have never seen Tevette so dismantled.





Latescu generally fought in the heavyweight category, 1-2 exceptions at 95 and now at 90 with Sattari. I think that a maximum of 95 is his category, or 90.

REGARDING titles, K-1 could not have brought Latescu as a challenger with no match in the promotion.

Latescu was not bigger, the match was not contested at openweight but at 90 kilograms. It's a huge advantage that you live in Japan and bring your opponent from Europe without many days of accommodation in Asia and who has to lose almost 15 kilograms in 2 months. And after all, shouldn't we do competitive matches anymore?

[alchemy (Banned)]

Dec 3, 2022 16:37:28 GMT 1 vampiro said:

I am beyond disappointed that I expected the Sattari loss. I did not like that fight for him.. something about Latescu I just didn't like. He is a lot bigger, clearly steroided up, but I don't even think thats the reason Mahmoud lost. I find Mahmoud to be very boxer-ish for kickboxing, and he has no sparring partners in Japan. It is pretty alarming that old Peter Aerts, Ernesto Hoost, former world boxing champion Shinji Takehara and a former amateur boxer turned 0-1 pro Valodia Carrero are the only people who can hold pads for him and actually do some drills with him. The only other fighter out of his gym (which is a yoga and fitness gym with UFC branding) is Mehrdad Sayyadi, a flyweight.

Also.. Sattari has become a very popular YouTuber in Japan. He seemed to be very relaxed over the summer and into the winter I found. He's been on KAI Asakura's YouTube channel a few times since they first collaborated in May. He has also been 'sparring' with the BREAKING DOWN fighters, who are very popular YouTube fighters and former pros. Even Peter Aerts wanted to fight with them. I imagine Stefan, who has put together a nice little run this year, was locking himself away for this moment.

Latescu gave him an advantage, flying from Europe for the first time. And K-1 only allows the athlete and the coach. It's about accommodation, time zone, and in only 2 months Latescu had to lose weight from 101-102 or as much as he had with Tevette to 90.

Of course, if Sattari stayed in 90 more, there was a difference, but not huge. In heavyweight, they fight constantly with bigger differences. Regarding the physique, Latescu is a bodybuilder now. 

Didn't Sattari fight at openweight before? Latescu was not bigger, the match was not contested at openweight but at 90 kilograms. It's a huge advantage that you live in Japan and bring your opponent from Europe without many days of accommodation in Asia and who has to lose almost 15 kilograms in 2 months.

@ K1power
In Western kickboxing, let's say that outside of 65, because the divisions in Glory and ONE are not fantastic, the best divisions are HW and LW. Heavyweight is unfortunately underrated. And I was referring to the more elite matches, which were on the same level as ONE Lightweight. 

However, in Romania, for example, 65 is sensational (Spetcu, Maxim, Bozan, Ionut Popa, Lapusneanu, Mavrodin, Petrisor, Trif and more who aren't fighting yet or weren't for titles), but their problem is that these young people do not want to be journeymen, with the exception of Vlad Trif, who went to Ulianov, and DFS surprisingly abandoned the project with this division in favour of heavyweights who are not all of top (probably Morosanu has the mentality of a heavyweight).

[K1power]

Not all connoisseurs have the same opinions, but I talked to many followers and they see Latescu as the most promising light heavyweight under the sun.

Are these 'many followers' your other identities?

All jokes aside, how many times do I have to ban you?

The last time I did I told you would NEVER BE WELCOME HERE AGAIN, EVER.
That wasn't some heat-of-the-moment type of comment. I meant it, so stay away.

You can spout your Google translated nonsense on MixFight where nobody reads it.

[vampiro]

To be fair to the alchemy dude, he is right about one thing; the Japanese think of Latescu as a monstrous, unbeatable fighter.. despite most of them thinking he was likely going to be an average foreigner before hand. Let nobody tell you the Japanese aren't as fickle as their Western counterparts. I especially can't understand the 'Sattari hype ends' comments.. its not like he is a star making noise outside of Japan, and I guess people don't like watching fun fighters. I loved Kimura destroying cans and a good fighter every now and then.

I actually thought the weight cut would help Latescu. He seemed to be the sort that would benefit from losing weight when I was watching him before in the weeks leading up to the hype. How alchemy can say Latescu wasn't bigger when he clearly was is beyond me. His team needs to do something about that steroid acne too.

A lot of calls now for a 80-85 kg class to be centered around Sattari, which I wouldn't mind seeing as I think that would be a fun experiment. I think RISE would cater better to that than K-1 though.

[K1power]

Dec 4, 2022 12:23:11 GMT 1 vampiro said:

To be fair to the alchemy dude, he is right about one thing; the Japanese think of Latescu as a monstrous, unbeatable fighter.. despite most of them thinking he was likely going to be an average foreigner before hand.

I think they kinda have to believe that. Believing Sattari lost to some monster is way easier to accept than realizing he lost to a nobody who couldn't put 44 year old Poturak away last year.

And yeah K-1 should do an 80-85kg weightclass. They have 8 weightclasses between 53-70kg - which feels like absolute overkill - and then they have NOTHING between 70-90kg.

If I had a say I'd completely restructure their weightclasses and only have a weightclass every 5kg. Something like:

- 55
- 60
- 65
- 70
- 75
- 80
- 85
- 90
- 95+

And for the women:

- 45
- 50
- 55
- 60 (maybe?)

It won't happen, because this would mean less Japanese champions and some current champions ending up fighting each other.

It would also mean investing a lot more in foreign fighters, but I think that's the only way to make it appealing to everybody and legitimize every weightclass.

[vampiro]

Truth about the belief. Sattari is still trending on all social media even now. Another interesting comparison I saw today was between Sattari and Anpo. Both were in the position to become a new star, especially because they became YouTube stars.. and disaster struck. Takumi Nakamura said Latescu performed better than he anticipated. Fucking hell lol. On his YouTube channel, Masato said he thinks Mahmoud should go abroad to prepare for fights going forward as that was how he became a better fighter.

Also, I have seen TikTok videos of the fight from ringside.. I want to know what Latescu weighed the night of the fight because he looked fucking massive from ringside. Perhaps the angle and lighting play a part, but he looked bigger in there than he did at the weigh in. The momentary deathly silence when the bell rang was eery.

Japanese people have been crying out for foreigners in the upper weight divisions for a long time now. I understand why they won't expand and invest in the upper weight classes, even if I think they're mental for not trying to find random dudes in Europe and the Americas and else where. Even if they're no good, you can still put on some good fights.

Also, Masashi Kumura is a handsome dude. That is all. Apparently, the girl he was posing with is his girlfriend who is some sort of hired cheerleader for K-1 and an actress or something. I think she did guest commentary at K-FESTA 5. It's not hard to see who they prefer in the Kumura-Kaneko rivalry (not that I blame them at all). I think Kaneko beats him again. I'm sold on Kaneko, but I can't wait to see Kompetch in that fight. I actually thought Kompetch looked quite physically bigger than Kumura when they fought. I'd like to see how he looks next to Kaneko.

[Shadess]

K-1 is in a bit tough spot when it comes to the heavier guys. They can't seem to hold on to really any outside Japan talent that is 70 kg or above. Fun to see with Latescu too how many fights they can keep him around before he leaves to Glory or ONE.

[lero]

Dec 4, 2022 12:52:48 GMT 1 K1power said:

Dec 4, 2022 12:23:11 GMT 1 vampiro said:

If I had a say I'd completely restructure their weightclasses and only have a weightclass every 5kg. Something like:

- 55
- 60
- 65
- 70
- 75
- 80
- 85
- 90
- 95+

-53 straw, -57 bantam, -62 feather, -67 Light, -73 Welter, -80 Medium, -89 Cruiser, -105 heavy, +105: Súper heavy

Talking about international guys in an one org to rule them all scenario, 67kg would be the place where many 70kg smaller guys like Kiria or Sitthichai would go meet Petchtanong or Anpo, 73kg would be for something like Allazov vs Semeleer, and 89kg would be the perfect spot for guys like Vakhitov.

[K1power]

Sure, they should finetune the weightclasses a bit to what's the ideal fit. Either way it should be more evenly spread out and IMO it should never go over 10 weightclasses in total (for men).

They also should - and I've said this a million times already - do more events with less fights per card.
About 10-12 K-1 events a year with a maximum of 15 fights per card. Cut some of the fluff and put it on Krush cards or revive Khaos. But I digress..

[vampiro]

I watched Budiao vs. Karimian. I picked Budiao to win, and I actually didn't mind his performance. He 'impressed' me in August at RISE WS when he smashed Ahn Jess. It was a mismatch, but I liked his style, and I liked his chances with it against Karimian. I laughed when he grabbed the ropes and stuck his leg out as Karimian came into range with a flying knee. Hilarious. Not even mad he punched Sina in the back of the head.

Leg kicks. Sattari should've stuck with the leg kicks imo. He's not much of kicker though, and I think the result would've been the same regardless. Also, I take back what I said to k1power earlier in the thread about the understandable reaction to overrating Latescu because of how they perceived Mahmoud Sattari.. to the ones who the following comment applies to, they're honestly just delusional about Latescu, and perhaps foreigners above 70 kg in general. I have a feeling they will overrate any good foreign fighter in the upper divisions because they've been starved of them for so long.

[K1power]

What Budiao had going for him in that fight are his physicality - he actually has the size to be a problem for Sina - and the fact that he looked to be in decent shape.

Aside from that he pretty much exactly looked - as someone on Discord eloquently put it - like a create-a-fighter. You know when you play career mode and your fighter has every attribute at level 1 and still only has his basic moveset? That's exactly what Budiao reminded me of.

That said, without the stupid rabbit punch - which is very dangerous BTW - he could have won that fight legitimately. But there were some stupid shenanigans going on in that fight and Budiao probably wanted payback for that cheap shot Sina threw during an earlier break.

And I have nothing against Karimian. I've always said I kinda like him and while he has some obvious flaws in his game I'm not the type of person to call fighters cans or whatever (even when I don't have the best opinion of them). That whole keyboard warrior cynicism just isn't my cup of tea. I think at times Sina's actually shown competent kickboxing and it's not easy for a person with his physical build to move around competently. He almost reminds me of a smaller version of Choi.

My problem with Karimian is that success has obviously gone to his head. He hasn't looked good in his previous couple of fights and the whole story about him wanting to join Glory after hanging out at Mike's Gym and feeling Glory Rivals is below him is such pure delusion and arrogance. A guy like El Bouni who we've seen on the first three Glory Rivals cards (and in K-1 BTW) would destroy him within 2 minutes. I really wish Kyotaro and K-Jee would have beaten him, because like with Sattari I think the success on Karimian's record is misleading.