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Post by K1power on Sept 12, 2017 18:43:57 GMT 1
I figured as much as it being a holiday. K-1 has had a history of using holiday weekdays for events dating back as far as the FEG days. I remember a K-1 MAX show taking place on a wednesday.
Still, other than Fridays I never understood events taking place on a weekday - especially on a holiday. Somehow that makes even less sense to me. If anything, in this scenario Sunday makes more sense since you'd have the monday off to sleep in after a long day/evening of attending an event for 5+ hours or so. But that might just be me and/or a cultural difference.
Not selling out an 8k event on a holiday with a card that's far from their biggest ever doesn't sound crazy to me, though. And still, I'm really looking forward to this one as well.
Not as much as to the heavyweight event though; I might be alone in this, but just the idea of a true K-1 heavyweight event takes me back to the FEG days and K-1's golden era and I can't help but be really enthusiastic for that.
Man, I wish I had off from work on monday..
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Post by JustBleedFan on Sept 14, 2017 1:15:40 GMT 1
Thanks for the posts guys, reading these helps give some context to these fights and the tournament bouts to someone who just started following K-1 recently.
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Post by karaevfan on Sept 17, 2017 7:53:35 GMT 1
Going down tomorrow!
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Post by fartsmeller on Sept 18, 2017 11:16:15 GMT 1
Mohan Dragon fights exactly like Bob Sapp
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Post by fartsmeller on Sept 18, 2017 11:58:11 GMT 1
Takeru just legit invoked Garyu Time
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Post by Shadess on Sept 18, 2017 13:48:45 GMT 1
This still ended up being little better event than I thought it would be. Mohan Dragon fights exactly like Bob Sapp Sapp, Yi Long and a dash of Morosanu all mixed together into a sloppier end product. If I worked at Wu Lin Feng I would 100% book Yi Long vs. Mohan Dragon at Yi Long weight. |
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Post by fartsmeller on Sept 18, 2017 14:44:11 GMT 1
So I mean Mohan Dragon may objectively be the least skilled kickboxer I've ever seen in a pro event, but he's got something that connects with the audience (and this is not a joke about his wildly inaccurate punching) and you can see it in moments like the crowd cheering at the eventual no down call. I'm totally at peace with him being brought back and occupying some kind of Fire Harada role. Equally I'm at peace with the guys he knocked out sticking to the regionals.
Takeru had a seriously hard time adjusting to Wang's push kicks, he didn't really commit to going to the body until the second round. Interesting fight and I'd like to see a rematch.
I'd honestly never seen Stauros before, and when the VTR showed Superkombat and played the old "he's Greek, remember Zambidis?" angle I thought it was a foregone conclusion. Then he beat Taiga's ass clean off and even threw in the Zambo double knees. I'm sure it wasn't what the promoters hoped for but I thought it was great. Hopefully they make a title fight rematch and don't have another champion constantly losing non title fights.
I hope Melsik's injury isn't the shoulder again.
Not really looking forward to more out of this division unless they get some better talent, but the show was at least fun.
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Post by K1power on Sept 18, 2017 20:27:35 GMT 1
Looks like a lot of the fights have made it to Fighting Arts' YT channel already: www.youtube.com/channel/UCcvLoKAqdR2CpzgLpwElGYg/videosSince I don't have the time to watch all of it right now and don't want to have to avoid the internet for spoilers for a week; does anyone have a full list of results yet? |
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Post by Shadess on Sept 19, 2017 7:28:43 GMT 1
If I worked at Wu Lin Feng I would 100% book Yi Long vs. Mohan Dragon at Yi Long weight.  |
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Post by fartsmeller on Sept 19, 2017 11:15:35 GMT 1
If I worked at Wu Lin Feng I would 100% book Yi Long vs. Mohan Dragon at Yi Long weight. Between this and Conor McGregor I believe in the secret now |
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Post by K1power on Sept 20, 2017 18:30:37 GMT 1
Full ResultsK-1 Featherweight Championship matchTakeru defeats Junguang Wang DEC (Unanimous, 30-29,30-29,30-28) K-1 -67.5kg Welterweight Championship Tournament
Final: Yuta Kubo defeats Mohan Dragon DEC (Unanimous, 29-26,30-27,30-25) --- Semifinal #2 : Yuta Kubo defeats Hitoshi Tsukakoshi KO 1R (two downs, low kicks) Semifinal #1 : Mohan Dragon defeats Kazuki Yamagiwa KO 2R (Two downs, punches) *(Melsik Baghdasarya could compete due to a shoulder injury)--- Quarterfinal #4 : Yuta Kubo defeats Minoru “Phillip” Kimura DEC (Unanimous, 29-27,29-27,30-26) Quarterfinal #3 : Hitoshi Tsukakoshi defeats Wenbao Han DEC (Unanimous , 29-28,29-28,29-27) Quarterfinal #2 : Melsik Baghdasarya defeats Kazuki Yamagiwa DEC (Unanimous, 29-28,29-28,30-28) Quarterfinal #1 : Mohan Dragon defeats Daiki Watabe TKO 1R (Two knockdowns, punches) --- Reserve match :Keita Makihara defeats KENJI TKO 3R (Doctor Stoppge,Cut, left highkick) SuperfightsStauros Exakoustidis defeats Taiga KO 1R (3 knockdowns, punches) Yoshiki Takei defeats Namito Izawa KO 3R (3 knockdowns) Koji defeats Kotaro Shimano DEC (Unanimous, 29-25,29-25,29-25) Hinata defeats Sergio Sanchez DEC (Unanimous, 30-29,30-29,29-28) Hirotaka Urabe defeats Masahiro Yamamoto KO 2R (Punch) K-1 College -55kg GP FinalNomura Yu defeats Kanatsuka DEC (Unanimous 29-28,30-29,30-28) K-1 College -60kg GP FinalUchida Michitaka defeats Shimoji Ryo K-1 College -65kg GP FinalSano Juntaira defeats Nakarai Ryu DEC (30-29,30-28,30-28) UndercardTaichi Furuta defeats NORI DEC (Majority, 30-29,29-29,30-29) Jin Harayama defeats Toshiki Watanabe KO 1R (Punch) K-1 World Grand Prix Japan -67.5kg Grand Prix Results: Yuta Kubo Victoriousliverkick.com/k-1-world-grand-prix-japan-67-5kg-grand-prix-results-yuta-kubo-victorious/
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Post by fartsmeller on Sept 20, 2017 18:45:56 GMT 1
Fights are all up on the K-1 youtube channel btw. Also it really sucks that Melsik's shoulder is hurt again.
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Post by K1power on Oct 1, 2017 14:43:37 GMT 1
I finally saw this yesterday and thought it was GREAT.
From some of the reactions I almost expected it to be just 'okay'.
While the card - namely the tournament - didn't necessarily have the most stacked field I can't recall a single fight I wasn't entertained by.
So let's jump right into it: Mohan Dragon. What a character!
While he definitely isn't the most skilled kickboxer he is far from the worst either. Also, he definitely compensates for his lack of technical skills by showing a fairly good sense of distance and timing and showing good stamina; throwing every shot with seemingly monstrous power takes a LOT of energy. He also came across as a very likeable guy.
At the very least he was dangerous enough to knock out two more traditional kickboxers who should have been more advanced than him in and he managed to give Kubo a good fight, tagging him several times in every round. I guess when a 67kg fighter throws wild haymakers they are a bit harder to see coming compared to a heavyweight throwing them.
As for Kubo, he looked great and I'm happy for him winning the tournament. There was obviously a lot of emotion coming out of him, but I have no idea about the backstory of it since the version of the event I watched unfortunately had all the VTR stuff cut out (probably to save time & file size).
What's the story between Kubo and Kimura? I know Karaevfan alluded to it a few times, but I didn't know there was that much of a story to it nor emotion behind it. After Kubo won the fight both were very emotional and while I didn't like how Kimura ignored Kubo at first it was great to see them making peace and showing each other respect after a while. Kimura even went on on to congratulate Kubo after the end of the tournament which was a nice added touch. I obviously care a lot about the 'whole package' of an event. It's not just about quality or entertaining fights to me; I care a lot about storylines - especially the real ones - and I love when there's some emotional stuff that feels real. I'm generally not a big people person since I feel most of them are assholes, so when people show some heart and don't act like total dicks I tend to gravitate toward and really appreciate it.
Also, there were so many great knockdowns & knockouts but man, Taiga did not expect that to happen to him. Just when he was showing some hints of showboating he got hammered hard!
The one thing I'm going to complain about is Hinata vs Sanchez. The constant breaks in action were annoying and made the fight take twice its intended time. Some of the breaks were definitely legit (like after the headbutts and groin shot), but a lot of them felt unnecessary and halted the action everytime it was getting good.
All in all another great event though and if this is an accurate representation of what I can expect from a 'lesser' K-1 Japan event, I don't mind at all having a few of those in a season.
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Post by karaevfan on Oct 7, 2017 0:49:19 GMT 1
So let's jump right into it: Mohan Dragon. What a character! While he definitely isn't the most skilled kickboxer he is far from the worst either. Also, he definitely compensates for his lack of technical skills by showing a fairly good sense of distance and timing and showing good stamina; throwing every shot with seemingly monstrous power takes a LOT of energy. He also came across as a very likeable guy. At the very least he was dangerous enough to knock out two more traditional kickboxers who should have been more advanced than him in and he managed to give Kubo a good fight, tagging him several times in every round. I guess when a 67kg fighter throws wild haymakers they are a bit harder to see coming compared to a heavyweight throwing them. Mohan's dream is to win a tournament and use the winnings to start a curry shop. He's always been a game brawler. I think someone mentioned Fire Harada, he's basically him if Fire wasn't completely shot by the time he got the callup to K-1. HIs fight vs. Tsukakoshi was also a great brawl When Kimura was a weird pale white guy in Koshien back in 2010 or so, he saw Kubo tearing it up in Krush/K-1 and idolized him. He came to Tokyo to train in the same gym (Fighting Kairos) as Kubo and Kubo called him his 'little brother' (which is awkward since Kubo Kenji actually is his little brother and Yuta is on record saying he's closer to Kimura than Kenji). However in 2015 or so, Kubo was given the opportunity to start a gym of his own (K-1 Gym Kings) and basically his departure tore apart the old team. Kimura left his old gym too and now is basically a freelancer traveling between Weerasakrek and some boxing gyms. So there was some bitterness over than, and on top of that K-1 matched Kubo and Kimura against each other in the first round of the tournament. It was considered a bit of a harsh move since both of them were in a downwards trajectory and the obvious implication was that it would be a loser leaves town match where the winner may have to effectively retire the lower. Kimura got even more incensed when Kubo revealed at the weigh ins that he had actually gone back to their old gym for this fight and was having their old trainer prep him against Kimura. Kimura was so mad he said he would be prepared to retire Kubo and that this was goodbye, so nice that they seemed to have patched up. Kubo in turn was crying because he was apparently really pressured by his recent losses. In the post fight interview he said that he had to fight against everyone saying that he was past his prime and that his career had ended. Basically he said that he knew he couldn't retire before finally becoming a K-1 world champion and proposed to his girlfriend on the spot. |
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Post by K1power on Oct 11, 2017 20:39:15 GMT 1
Thanks man, loving all the background information. It adds so much and creates a better grasp and understanding of what's going on and why.
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