Was a pretty good showing for kickboxing, I thought. RENA looked great, Takeru was his usual self. Souwer looked incredible and Jaideep did exactly what we thought he would.
no drastic change in the ring or anything really. Some ledlights in the ropes, barely noticeable.
It may not have come across on TV but in the arena, when it was pitch black, the ring looked amazing.
All in all, a really good event. Proper JMMA NYE stuff.
RENA got some huge cheers. It would definitely be a stretch to say most people in that arena were Shoot Boxing fans, but the vast majority at least knew of RENA I would say. She's got huge potential to do big things in RIZIN. It was great when RENA gave props to Rumina Sato (who was doing commentary for the event) for teaching her that flying arm bar too.
People went mad for Takeru too. I was a it surprised actually, what with it being an MMA heavy crowd. Like RENA you can really sense the buzz around him. As Dave said, was a good night for Kickboxing.
And speaking of Kickboxing, the love for Aerts was incredible. I honestly don't know who got the bigger reaction, him or Fedor. In these days of disingenuous marketing and fickle fandom it was genuinely moving to see the respect given to Aerts. It's the same with Fedor. Honestly I'm sure the vast majority of fans there yesterday don't still think he's the best Heavyweight in the world, but he's a legend and that's enough.
Also, I'd love to know how bad Akebono's cut was. There was a lot of blood, and they spent ages working on it.
Plus, this shot of Sapp; I don't know if it was audible on the foreign broadcast, but after he looked and them working on Akebono's head you could clearly hear him say "OMG that's his skull man..." to his corner in disgust.
Post by Kenshin (Banned) on Jan 2, 2016 3:30:13 GMT 1
Pretty entertaining stuff. It had a good balance between freak fights and legit ones. The first day was especially good, with lots of finishes and good fights. MVP was Saiga's girlfriend (?) though lol.
Post by Kenshin (Banned) on Jan 2, 2016 8:12:00 GMT 1
Oh, I totally forgot about Kid/Masato. This Kyokugen was the second show? This one seems to be more elusive on the Internet. I haven't seen any fights from that one so far.
That's cool, Aubtin. Do you live in Japan? I always thought you were from England.
That's cool, Aubtin. Do you live in Japan? I always thought you were from England.
Yeah I'm from England but I've been living in Tokyo for the last couple of years. Though I'm ashamed to say, since I moved here I'm yet to see a K-1 event live
