Kakutougi's Pick Your Best Of 2023 In Kickboxing

[K1power]

With only a handful of events left to go this year, it's time to list our favorites again!
Before I share my own picks I'd like to know what you guys thought.

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 Year

You can name a single favorite, do rankings or just share something that stood out to you in 2023.

We'll be doing this for kickboxing, MMA and Boxing.

Let's kick this off!

PS: Anything kickfighting (MT, Karate etc.) is welcome.

[K1power]

BEYOND KICKBOXING AWARDS 2023

[K1power]

New Warman Kickfighting show with 2023 review

[K1power]

For the two people actually interested in my thoughts lol, I apologize for being so incredibly late with my picks and therefore probably forgetting a ton of stuff. That said, here goes:

- Fight(s) Of The Year

I honestly had no clue what to pick. A lot of people would probably say Allazov vs. Grigorian, but I've only seen bits and pieces of it.

Instead, I'm going with a fight that I really liked:

Jordann Pikeur vs. Abiral "Himalayan Cheetah" Ghimire



- Upset(s) Of The Year

* Tariq Osaro vs. Antonio Plazibat - As I said before; it wasn't so much that Cookie won, but the way he did. It was mostly a one sided beatdown.

* Sofian Laïdouni vs. Benjamin Adegbuyi - While Adegbuyi had a couple of tough losses going into this, he was still a clear favorite against the unknown Laïdouni. Well, things worked out differently.

- Fighter(s) Of The Year

I probably have to go with Chingiz Allazov. He only fought twice, but he knocked out Superbon and took a well-earned decision over Marat Grigorian. Just very high level performances.

- Breakout Fighter(s) Of The Year

* Liu Ce - For those that don't pay much attention to the Chinese circuit, Liu Ce was an unknown quantity. He both surprised and impressed me in his K-1 tournament victory.

* Ouyang Feng - Pretty much verbatim what I wrote for Liu Ce, except at 70kg lol.

* Stefan Latescu - Gotta eat some crow here as I never was impressed by Latescu, but he had a very active and successful 2022 and 2023. Not only did he have 10 (!) fights, but he won all of them with 7 being finishes.

* Bahram Rajabzadeh - It took a while for him to win me over, but he eventually did. He fought and won 5 times in 2023, 4 of them by KO.

* Tariq Osaro - His fight against Rico might have been a dud, but he also knocked out Wilnis, Aygün and Plazibat in 2023.

And perhaps a bit too early to list them as breakout fighters of 2023, but I wanted to at least mention Teodor Hristov and Mohamed Touchassie. Their stardom will grow in 2024 and beyond.

- Knockout(s) Of The Year

* Allazov vs. Superbon



* Noiri vs. Askerov



* Mahieddine vs. Coulibaly



* Van Soest vs. Moussaddak



* Wajima vs. Jomthong



- Comeback(s) Of The Year

* Bahram Rajabzadeh - He went from a mostly forgotten unimpressive loss against Maslobojev to one of Glory's most hyped fighters.

* Michael Boapeah - Boapeah had a so-so 2022, but came back strong and fought himself into title contention with just a handful of pro fights.

* Hasan Toy - Toy went from 4 years of inactivity to capturing the K-1 belt at 75kg in impressive fashion.

* Berjan Peposhi - At least within Glory, Peposhi was known as the guy with fun fights he usually ends up losing. He managed to turn that streak around with an impressive victory against Miguel Trindade .

- Controversy(s) Of The Year

* A bunch of things that happened in Glory over the year: If I had to name specific examples I'd go with the many questionable VON/WAKO judging and reffing moments happening under their watch. Also the Badr/McSweeney debacle.

* Mohamed "Hamicha" Mezouari getting a gift decision over Diaguely Camara.

* K-1's international comeback - The ambition was cool, but there were a lot of issues with the execution.

- Event(s) Of The Year

I find it hard to pick a single stand-out event, but I really liked Glory Collision 5 and K-1 ReBIRTH 2.

- Story(s) Of The Year

* Just lots of movement within Glory - While not always positive, a LOT happened and there was and still is a lot of conversation.

* K-1's international comeback - It may have stumbled, but it sparked a bunch of conversation and is still on track as we speak.

Some mostly Dutch developments that still had some ramifications on the sport/community overall:
* House of Glory - While it wasn't perfect, it ended up being a fun show that brought forth some new talent.

* WarriorCode - Remy Bonjasky and his team delivering some fun Kickboxing related content/coverage and while it's not perfect by any means it's now subbed in English so at least somewhat available for "everybody".

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, I'll do my best to be a lot quicker in the future!