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Post by Shadess on Feb 7, 2018 18:51:03 GMT 1
The main Wu Lin Feng guy Wu Lixin resigned yesterday. Wu Lin Feng/Henan made a deal for something like a $15mil per year for 3 years a while ago and the promotion, to whatever extent idk,is basically new now. Nobody seems to know yet if the guy is just resigning as the head of Wu Lin Feng and joining the new company running it or if he is out of it completely. Interesting to see where he ends up.
They've also said they are actively organizing discussions with Glory, K-1/Krush, Topking, ACB etc. They've done shows with ACB and Topking does co-promote too. Glory and K-1 don't really so guess they're talking about fighter exchange every now and then with them.
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Post by K1power on Feb 7, 2018 19:44:00 GMT 1
There's also some lesser news about an event in a place called Los Angeles...never heard of idk... www.glorykickboxing.com/news/robin-van-roosmalen-and-kevin-vannostrand-battle-for-undisputed-featherweight-championship-at-glory-52-los-angeles-on-saturday-march-31:b14aff94-4d6f-4990-8d4f-dd16415972f7GLORY 52 Los Angeles Featherweight Unification Bout: Robin van Roosmalen (c) vs. Kevin VanNostrand (ic) Middleweight Tournament Final Bout: Winner of Bout A vs. Winner of Bout B Lightweight Title Contender Bout: Marat Grigorian vs. Stoyan Koprivlenski Middleweight Tournament Semifinal Bout B: Jason Wilnis vs. Robert Thomas Middleweight Tournament Semifinal Bout A: Simon Marcus vs. Yousri Belgaroui GLORY 52 SuperFight Series Light Heavyweight Headline Bout: Pavel Zhuravlev vs. TBA Middleweight Bout: Mike Lemaire vs. Chris Camozzi Catchweight (53 kg) Bout: Anissa Meksen vs. TBA Lightweight Bout: Josh Jauncey vs. TBA Featherweight Bout: Zakaria Zouggary vs. TBA ...j/k this looks very nice. Now that's a tournament and depending on what kind of TBAs show up could become a lot better still too. Gave this a thread. Interesting card, looks like fun. I wonder who Zhuravled and Jauncey will be matched up with. Also, for the first time in a while I'm liking a Glory tournament field. |
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Post by Shadess on Feb 7, 2018 22:51:15 GMT 1
My mind wondered, since they're in the same promotion now...I wonder if and how fast Glory might consider making Holzken vs. Jaraya in the Netherlands? Nieky has his peeps and Jaraya was probably Enfusions most popular guy, could grab some attention with that. (8 most watched videos on Enfusion youtube are Jaraya fights)
Co-main for Rico-Badr II at years end or before that Q3 or so main eventing another Dutchie show?
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Post by h on Feb 7, 2018 23:10:44 GMT 1
"kokfights" lulz.
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Post by Shadess on Feb 7, 2018 23:15:37 GMT 1
Hey it's real manly fights.
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Post by dvewlsh on Feb 7, 2018 23:20:21 GMT 1
He uh... doesn't look like he's doing very well. Could be the lighting and he was never the super ripped type, but he does have a distinct 'chunky guy flustered after a lifeguard asked him to take his shirt off when dipping into the pool' look to him. He's coloring is... strange, to say the least. He looks peaked compared to how he usually does. Also, wow, the acne? It's weird to post those publicly when James hasn't had a chance to take them into lightroom and photoshop and make him look like a professional fighter and now a lost child. |
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Post by Shadess on Feb 8, 2018 16:34:02 GMT 1
The main Wu Lin Feng guy Wu Lixin resigned yesterday. Wu Lin Feng/Henan made a deal for something like a $15mil per year for 3 years a while ago and the promotion, to whatever extent idk,is basically new now. Nobody seems to know yet if the guy is just resigning as the head of Wu Lin Feng and joining the new company running it or if he is out of it completely. Interesting to see where he ends up. Just left Henan tv and is staying with Wu Lin Feng. |
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Post by karaevfan on Feb 8, 2018 18:43:24 GMT 1
The main Wu Lin Feng guy Wu Lixin resigned yesterday. Wu Lin Feng/Henan made a deal for something like a $15mil per year for 3 years a while ago and the promotion, to whatever extent idk,is basically new now. Nobody seems to know yet if the guy is just resigning as the head of Wu Lin Feng and joining the new company running it or if he is out of it completely. Interesting to see where he ends up. They've also said they are actively organizing discussions with Glory, K-1/Krush, Topking, ACB etc. They've done shows with ACB and Topking does co-promote too. Glory and K-1 don't really so guess they're talking about fighter exchange every now and then with them. This reminds me, did we ever find out what the deal was between WLF/GoH, whether its actually just one group running them as separate brands or some guys from WLF splintering to start GoH? |
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Post by Shadess on Feb 8, 2018 19:11:59 GMT 1
Don't think GoH has anything to do with WLF anymore. They have their own GoH titles and everything is GoH branded in general. Wu Lin Feng keeps talking about WLF things so assuming the control of that ~organization whatever it is remained on that side of things.
And yeah most the promotions in China are by people splintered off from Wu Lin Feng/WLF. Kunlun guys were producers there and GoH guys were some of the main people there for years and it was a pretty big deal when they left. Specially as Guo Chendong who is the main guy at GoH now was basically the Dana White main public face of Wu Lin Feng.
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rictor
Intermediate Member
Posts: 396 
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Post by rictor on Feb 8, 2018 19:24:14 GMT 1
About K-1 Japan. If things stop at just the Try Hard Gym fighters leaving it won't be the end of the world, right? How I see it is that they must have gotten another offer like "hey, we will give you more money and more freedom than them so come to us" otherwise it would be quite short-sighted and stupid to leave over just one fight (even if it was a fight with Tenshin) and not having anything lined up for the future already. Whether it's from Sakakibara or someone else is another thing. Though if it's in fact from Sakakibara, doesn't he already have a history of false promises? And he was talking for years about returning to fighting business and the best he came up with was RIZIN? Let's just say I don't have high hopes. Though competition is always good for fans because it raises the quality of the product.
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Post by karaevfan on Feb 9, 2018 22:29:27 GMT 1
About K-1 Japan. If things stop at just the Try Hard Gym fighters leaving it won't be the end of the world, right? How I see it is that they must have gotten another offer like "hey, we will give you more money and more freedom than them so come to us" otherwise it would be quite short-sighted and stupid to leave over just one fight (even if it was a fight with Tenshin) and not having anything lined up for the future already. Whether it's from Sakakibara or someone else is another thing. Though if it's in fact from Sakakibara, doesn't he already have a history of false promises? And he was talking for years about returning to fighting business and the best he came up with was RIZIN? Let's just say I don't have high hopes. Though competition is always good for fans because it raises the quality of the product. Yeah its not the end of the world. People were freaking out at the time because there seemed to be a lot of turmoil going on elsewhere at the time and we didn't know how related they were. For example, Ozawa Kaito and Noiri Masaaki put up social media posts saying that they were quitting their gym (K-1 Gym Ebisu-Kohiruimaki Dojo) and people were wondering if they had been poached too. Turns out, they likely weren't. It seemed like Kohiruimaki was ripping them off or something, and Kohi got purged from the gym and Ozawa/Noiri took back their resignations. Similar stuff was going down in K-1 Gym Yokohama and elsewhere. The running theory on the whole Try Hard thing is this... Background - K-1 Japan is unique in all of Japanese kickboxing because it demands contracts with 1 year exclusivity - This is really abnormal in the industry and pisses off a lot of gyms/promotions - K-1 Japan still managed to outgrow everyone and dominate cause its brand name was so overwhelming that fighters desperately wanted to fight for them (for example, its widely believed that Noiri's desire to fight in K-1 is why he got banned from kickboxing for a year, though that's a whole different can of worms) - Because K-1 needs to stock its stables, it gets entangled in gym operations. Many topline kickboxing gyms are roped into the K-1 Gym network (e.g. Silver Wolf, Kohi Dojo, Crazy Bee, Team Dragon) What likely went down (based on what I'm hearing from both the K-1 and Try Hard sides - Tenshin Nasukawa has become the 2nd biggest star for RIZIN over the last year. He starts getting enough pull in the organization that he's able to start refusing MMA fights and demanding that RIZIN does kickboxing show for him - Sakakibara decides to throw in and starts putting together the Kickboxing tournament on NYE. Taiga is intrigued by the prospect of a superfight with Tenshin and tries to throw his hat in the ring, but K-1 is like "Uh no. Contract exclusivity. Denied" - Try Hard acquiesces, but start making noise about letting the contract lapse mid-2018. K-1 and Try Hard talk it over and come to enough of an understanding that K-1 books them for fights in K-1/Krush/Big Bang - Try Hard is still considering options though. There's a. RISE, which has always loathed K-1 Japan b. RIZIN, which started making noise that they're actually doing spin-off kickboxing events this year and c. KNOCK OUT, which is gaining a ton of steam - Late January. Either K-1 found out that Try Hard was talking to other promotions or Try Hard tries to negotiate for a deal where its fighters are allowed to take fights outside of K-1. K-1 decided they aren't going to give TRY HARD an opportunity to enter free agency when they could go into it with considerable leverage if Taiga defeats Takeru and Rukiya defeats Gonnapar. They preemptively pull them from all fights - Try Hard is left without any fights on their schedule. Now they're scrambling to actually get to one of their alternative options Do I think any of the alternatives pose a real threat to K-1? I dunno. RIZIN has the allure of a TV slot, but like you said they don't really have a great track record of building up a consistent product. RISE is a non-factor. Yeah, its growing thanks to Tenshin (doing a 8K show this year), but it already tried to stand up to K-1 by building up a coalition of anti-K-1 gyms (BLADE) and they got dismantled without K-1 breaking a sweat. KNOCK OUT is gaining steam, but they're doing their own weird little thing. Worst case scenario. RIZIN does the Bellator thing of putting up a big fanfare about starting up a kickboxing org, grabs a couple flashy names it likes and utterly fails to deliver a product. K-1 is robbed of some talent and takes reputational damage. Everyone gets a slightly worse off product. |
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Post by fartsmeller on Feb 9, 2018 23:44:36 GMT 1
Thanks for all the background info. All this backroom politics stuff I find fascinating after the fact, like it makes for great documentary fodder, but when it's actually going on it's frustrating as shit.
I'm glad Tenshin is realising his worth and putting the boots to promoters rather than just doing them constant favours, but Sakakibara is a major league bullshitter and I wouldn't trust a word he says until it's happening live on TV. He's a TV guy in a world of grassroots fighting organisations that exist and fight for scraps because TV guys caused the ass to fall out of the market. He can be all coy and post hints on instagram and whatever, but he's not in the kickboxing business, he's in the spending other people's money business. If Fuji don't give him more than 3 slots a year, he's not gonna spend his own money booking Korakuen and having guys bust their ass selling tickets, but every other org would.
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Post by Shadess on Feb 10, 2018 13:27:31 GMT 1
 Not necessarily the direction I had hoped to see BellaKB going. Ignashov? |
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Post by Shadess on Feb 10, 2018 21:34:25 GMT 1
Enfusion streams seem to be on the wider pirate stream sites now. Looks like the iPPV stream and not some live tv one. Would wager a guess Enfusion done it themselves which would be smart getting the product out there more.
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Post by K1power on Feb 10, 2018 21:38:10 GMT 1
Oh shit, completely forgot about that one. Some fun fights on the card as well.
Edit: Nevermind, this is not the one with Souwer vs. Özcan & Tavares vs. Lazaar.
That one is next week.
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