Here they finally are; my picks. Much later than last year and then I wanted to, but doing these takes a lot of time and things have been super busy. And as per usual, I'm probably missing a ton of stuff
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Anyway, let's get into it:
- Fight(s) Of The YearTenshin vs. Takeru
The Fight of the year in terms of its magnitude and what had to be done to make it happen. While the fight itself was good, I wouldn't say it was the best.
The two fights that actually had me applauding out of excitement:
- Kaneko Akihiro vs. Kumura Masashi
- Yoza Yuki vs. Asahisa Taio
Just two amazingly entertaining fights.
Some honorable mentions:
- Sergej Maslobojev vs. Tarik Khbabez
- Regian Eersel vs. Arian Sadikovic
- Tyjani Beztati vs. Stoyan Koprivlenski
- Upset(s) Of The Year- Sinsamut Klinmee vs. Nieky Holzken - I think many expected this to be some sort of comeback fight for Holzken, but then Klinmee knocked him out.
- Serhiy Adamchuk vs. Kento Haraguchi - Kento legitimately defeated Adamchuk, which I don't think anyone saw coming.
- Mahmoud Sattari vs. Stefan Latescu - Maybe not much of a surprise looking at the size difference, but Sattari was on a roll going into this, only to end up getting steamrolled himself.
- Fighter(s) Of The Year- Tenshin - Retiring from the sport undefeated and with a victory over his one big rival in the division is a boss move.
- Chingiz Allazov - What a great year Allazov had, and that's not even counting his recent win over Superbon as that happened this year!
As for the women, I'd have to go with Phayahong Ayothayafightgym. Kinda came out of nowhere and took the tournament and belt.
- Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year- Kaneko Akihiro - He was someone to keep an eye on before, but becoming K-1's super bantamweight champion by winning the tournament really put him on the map.
- Masashi Kumura - A star that was born in that same super bantmanweight tournament.
- Toma - He might have lost to Gunji twice, but gave everybody trouble and is only 20 years old!
- Serkan Ozcaglayan - He stumbled against Almeida, but really put himself on the map in 2022.
- Jay Overmeer - The new kid on the block who's working his way toward a title shot, one fight at a time.
- Sinsamut Klinmee - Unknown quantity Klinmee made his ONE debut with a KO over Holzken, then went on to KO Liam Nolan and gave Regian Eersel a run for his money.
- Ahmad Chikh Mousa - While he hasn't fought any major names yet, his style is very exciting to watch. Good find by Glory.
For the women:
- Phayahong Ayothayafightgym - For the same reason I picked her as figher of the year.
- Tessa de Kom - Enfusion hopeful de Kom debuts at Glory Rivals and defeats Rise champion Kobayashi Manazo just like that.
- Knockout(s) Of The YearNo particular order, just a bunch of amazing KOs:
And, while not a KO, still a great knockdown:
- Comeback(s) Of The Year- Anpo Rukiya knocking out Phlaychumphon Sor. Srisomphong in the first round after looking about to go himself.
- Gunji Taito defeating Toma by Extra Round Unanimous Decision after being in serious trouble himself.
- Alistair Overeem making a successfull comeback to kickboxing after more than a decade.
- Giorgio Petrosyan coming back with a stoppage of his own after suffering that horrific knockout and a broken jaw against Superbon.
- Guto Inocente coming back to kickboxing with a couple of stoppages before getting finished by Kryklia, which is nothing to be ashamed of.
- Errol Zimmerman returning to the winner's circle with nice stoppages over Marcin Rózalski and Tomáš Hron. Perhaps he can make one last run in Glory or K-1.
- Glory as a promotion; They started the year with that whole Glory 80 debacle - which I still largely blame them for - but after a bit of downtime and some adjustments they came back with a solid schedule for the remainder of the year and some new broadcast deals, including the one with Videoland. Along the way there was some additional controversy with Rivals events being cancelled and fighters getting suspended, but somehow the season still ended surprisingly well for them.
- Controversy(s) Of The Year- I'd have to go with the Glory 80 cancellation due to riots breaking out between Polish hooligans and the Badr army. It was kickboxing at its worst and the situation was handled extremely poorly by all parties involved - especially Glory. It gave critics of the sport an even bigger stick to hit with and I felt the repercussions could have been much more severe than they ultimately ended up being.
- Glory also cut all their Russian fighters after Russia invaded the Ukraine. While I understand people's frustration over it, I don't think it's a situation that's easily solvable at this point.
- Then there was the Glory Rivals initiative. The announcement wasn't met with a lot of enthousiasm and was seen as some sort of cost cutting measure. Then there were some event cancellations/postponements/reshuffling and it was a bad look. Ultimately, the Rivals events that were held ended up being okay, but I always felt there was some identity crisis going on.
- Then there were multiple Glory fighters failing drug tests, getting suspended and Glory temporarily moving away from the Netherlands to avoid having more fighters banned lol.
- Oh yeah, Glory also tried to shove NFTs down our throats for a bit lol.
Jeez, most of the controversy in the sport revolved around Glory in 2022. At least that's how it seems to me.
There were other things going on as well, though:
- Sakakibara's Yakuza links once again hurting the sport, in this case it made the TV deal for THE MATCH fall through, which would've opened a lot of doors.
- There were also some really bad decisions, Semeleer vs Nabiyev and Koprivlenski vs. Kaito come to mind.
- Then there was the ongoing trainwreck that was the ONE HW Euro Tournament. Just read Shadess' coverage if you feel like laughing and crying simultaneously.
- Also wanted to mention K-1 losing a bunch of big name fighters over the course of the year, including of course Takeru.
- T8KO -> 8TKO lol.
- Event(s) Of The Year- K-1 WORLD GP 2022 in Tokyo [27-02] - Probably my favorite event of 2022. Just fire start to finish.
- K'Festa 5 - Another great event, just slightly falling behind K-1's February event.
- The Match - In terms of magnitude, money made, crowd attraction, main event this was the biggest and most important event of 2022 as far as I'm concerned. In terms of quality/entertainment it just fell behind the aforementioned cards.
Also wanted to mention that it was good to see women getting multiple events of their own with the Rise Girls Power and K-1 WORLD GP 2022 JAPAN ～RING OF VENUS～cards. While purely women's cards aren't my cup of tea, I can't deny their importance and hope they catch on.
- Story(s) Of The Year- The Match actually happening and being as much of a success as it was despite having to overcome some major hurdles.
- ONE going to Stadiums. Not a lot of promotions have had success trying something like this. Remember K-1 Global moving the MAX finals to Thailand?
- Rico Verhoeven's HIT IT Event - Arguably this fits under controversies, but I just wanted it mentioned somewhere. Still surprised Glory allowed this.
- BeyondKick website launch! Sort of a spiritual successor to LiverKick. Let's hope it's for the long run.
- Not a big story by any means, but I've noticed that slowly but surely, calfkicks are gaining some ground in major promotions with more and more fighters using them successfully.
- Melvin Manhoef car chasing 3 burglars that tried to break in his house, smashing their window with his fist, pulling them out of the car and waiting for the police to arrive. All of that while wearing his slippers. Since then, Manhoef retired and unretired from fighting lol.
- Speaking of retirement, kickfighting legends JWP and Cosmo Alexandre hung up their gloves as well.
Unfortunately, we lost a lot of fighters last year.
Legends Barrington Patterson and Errol Parris passed away and many Ukrainian fighters fell victim to the war.
They were all way too young. RIP.
I also wanted to mention that - as many of you may have known - one of our very own members, samurai1 (Adrian), shared last year that he was terminally ill. I've had some communication with him, but he hasn't been around since last April.
I'm not sure if you're still around Adrian, but you'll always be a part of the Kakutougi family.
