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Post by K1power on Jan 1, 2024 0:35:02 GMT 1
 Since not everything needs its own thread. Immediate results are allowed to be posted and discussed in this thread! |
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Post by larsenator on Jan 1, 2024 12:34:47 GMT 1
Here we go again - time flies!  |
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Post by K1power on Jan 1, 2024 13:48:26 GMT 1
That it does..
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Post by K1power on Jan 1, 2024 13:58:29 GMT 1
http://instagram.com/p/C1hR1NwIwJB Jamal Ben Saddik confirms he's still under contract with Glory and that he regrets not being part of the Grand Prix. I can easily imagine someone conveniently dropping out to make place for Jamal, but we'll see. |
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Post by Shadess on Jan 1, 2024 16:35:28 GMT 1
Perhaps things were a bit open with Plazi's injury and JBS PED ban if they held the tournament this year, but since they pushed it back... I'm not entirely sure why it ended up like this, for me it would've made more sense to not have held the last qualifier (Khachab) and instead have JBS in as a wildcard.
Maybe something to do with contract negotiations with Rico, and only getting him onboard with the tournament relatively late? Even still, over a couple months till the tournament.
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Post by Shadess on Jan 1, 2024 16:38:45 GMT 1
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Post by Shadess on Jan 1, 2024 17:23:12 GMT 1
Outlook for kickboxing in 2024.
Glory will slightly improve. They've slowly been getting back to it post covid. Some more broadcast deals for big markets they have nothing in now and they're ok.
Think ONE will likely be fine for 2024, but they'll keep turning more and more into Muay Thai.
For K-1 I quite honestly don't have very high expectations. They had a nice idea for expansion, but entirely fumbled the execution. Hoping they still keep to the idea of having partner promotions hold regional qualifier tournaments that feed into the main tournaments in Japan. They definitely need to get their shit together for international broadcasts.
RISE seems to be doing fine. Strong Japanese promotion.
WLF will likely continue being the lone decent level kickboxing promotion in China.
Kunlun is running shows again, seemingly more or less being able to keep to their plans. Not very hopeful of them being able to up their level a whole lot. EM Legend has an upcoming show with a couple ok names in there, not sure how regularly they plan on running events tho.
KOK is fine for 2024, other than Donatas Simanaitis dying in a car crash or something, they are probably in a pretty stable position now. Doubt they'll improve that much on their own, cooperation with K-1 for Euro qualifier tournaments might improve quality somewhat if those pan out.
Enfusion will keep chugging on. I would say their quality has gone down and will stay there, but together with the 8TKO events there's still a little something to be interested in with the tournaments, potentially. In 2023 their ability to execute plans, or lack there of, rivalled K-1's expansion plans and the all time shit show that was the ONE Euro heavyweight tournament. 8TKO really fumbled their 2023 tournaments. Maybe just stick to straight 8-man one night tournaments with no qualifiers or anything else and it might work.
Outside of K-1 managing to figure out meaningful international distribution, not sure there's that big expansion ahead for kickboxing in 2024. Glory is set in the Netherlands with videoland. DAZN would seemingly be an easy fit for them for any markets they don't have deals in, just figure it out. KOK is set too. Enfusion is on Viaplay, and Viaplay is near bankrupt. Supposedly the French Vivendi/Canal+ among others might bail them out. Canal+ also owns fightbox, maybe someone there finally figures out they should do something with their content in France too, perhaps some events there...idk.
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Haven't rambled on about kickboxing like this in a few years...
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Post by larsenator on Jan 2, 2024 11:30:16 GMT 1
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Post by Shadess on Jan 2, 2024 13:40:38 GMT 1
No expectations for Aerts' promotion, entirely wait and see attitude with it. There's been so so many promotions with big plans, only to do their first event and realize it brought in no money. Then immediately stop or scale their ambitions way down.
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lero
Advanced Member
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Post by lero on Jan 2, 2024 15:34:44 GMT 1
Think ONE will likely be fine for 2024, but they'll keep turning more and more into Muay Thai. Yes, I hope they just kill Kickboxing, and focus on Thai, they way is going seems to be Bellator Kickboxing all over again. ONE "Muay Thai" is also very limited in clinching and they use kickboxing scoring, so kickboxers who want to stay there can "just" add elbows to the formula and get used to small gloves. The ones who want to stick to k-1-ish rules should be allowed to leave the promotion. Under 'Special MMA rules'Yuta Kubo defeats Rukiya Anpo by Submission R1 (rear-naked choke) What a pussy. -------------------------------- The Jinsider 2: RISE WS Finals and K-1 Rebirth 2 with Pico and Dogman: |
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Post by K1power on Jan 2, 2024 18:21:34 GMT 1
I largely agree with Shadess' outlook for this year, so I'll just add a few thoughts of my own.
Glory will do well in 2024. The four(?) Grand Prix tournaments will gain a lot of traction and I expect Glory to spread them out evenly, so they'll have a major tentpole event every 3 months. Inbetween they can do some solid single fight cards to nicely fill out the rest of the season. That said, I do expect the HW GP to underdeliver. I hope I'm wrong and it'll be great, though.
It'll be interesting to see what K-1 will do this year, but IMO the single most important thing for them to focus on is a distribution deal.
Aerts' LEGEND is interesting and while I genuinely hope it's going to be successful, I don't see it becoming a rival to any of the major promotions anytime soon. For starters, they're only looking to do four events this year: two "rookie" events and two featuring foreign fighters. Gives me the impression that only two events will be somewhat bigger in scope while the others will feature a bunch of amateur fights. Then they're interested in featuring multiple different rulesets like Kickboxing, Muay Thai and Karate. Wasn't the whole point of "K-1 rules" to have fighters from all (stand-up) disciplines face off against each other? One of my biggest complaints about ONE is that they shouldn't half-ass multiple disciplines and just stick to a single one. And that applies here too. But hey, we haven't seen the first event yet so it's too early to really tell.
I hope ONE will make it easier for their Kickboxers to leave the promotion. They already seem to be botching Takeru vs. Rodtang, though, so I'm not holding my breath.
All of the more local promotions will keep doing their thing and perhaps give us some nice surprises along the way.
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lero
Advanced Member
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Post by lero on Jan 2, 2024 18:54:45 GMT 1
Year of the dragon is just around the corner, this means ucranian dragon and surinamese dragon are finally coming back!  |
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Post by Shadess on Jan 2, 2024 20:11:58 GMT 1
Kyshenko should come back at least for a retirement fight if nothing else. A K-1 Euro show might fit him if K-1 financed it a little. Think KOK owner used to be his manager and they seemed to have a decent relationship later on as well. KOK just can't afford him on their own.
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Post by K1power on Jan 3, 2024 17:09:17 GMT 1
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Post by K1power on Jan 3, 2024 17:13:03 GMT 1
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