K-1 and It's Showtime Close Multi-Year Agreement

Last Updated on Monday, 21 May 2012 02:56 Tuesday, 06 March 2012 11:14

Written by Dave Walsh

It's Showtime just sent out a press release announcing a multi-year agreement between them and the new owners of K-1, effective immediately. What this means is that K-1 is looking to scoop up talent for upcoming shows, and has looked to fighters under It's Showtime's management as there are numerous ones. Many It's Showtime fighters have signed, with more to come, with the new K-1 Global Holdings paying fighters 50% of the money owed to them by FEG. It is not clear what, exactly, FEG's involvement will be, if anything.

Full press release follows.

IT'S SHOWTIME closes deal with new K-1 organization.

With immediate effect, IT'S SHOWTIME closed a multi-year deal with the new owner of the K-1 label, Mr. Mike Kim. The company of Mr. Kim is called K-1 Global and is established in Hong Kong.

Even though this new company didn’t have any obligations towards our company and our fighters, K-1 Global has paid all of our fighters this week. This means that every fighter received a signing bonus which consists of 50% of the money that was still owed to them by the old company FEG.

K-1 will organize 4 big events already this year, including the final 16 and final 8 in the 70kg and heavyweight division. The bonuses the fighters can win will be astronomically high, but we leave it up to the company of K-1 Global to announce these amounts. We will also leave it up to them to announce the event schedule, but three weeks from now everything will be announced.

The following fighters have already signed a contract with K-1 on behalf of IT’S SHOWTIME: Daniel Ghita, Tyrone Spong, Hesdy Gerges, Paul Slowinski, Rico Verhoeven, Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva, Ben Edwards, Melvin Manhoef, Sergii Lashchenko, Mourad Bouzidi, Dzevad Poturak, Chahid Oulad El Hadj, Gago Drago and Andy Ristie.

Contracts which are ready to be signed with K-1 this week: Ruslan Karaev, Harut Grigorian, Chris Ngimbi, etc.

There have been several contracts signed with other big names in kickboxing, but these are not under contract with IT’S SHOWTIME, so we wait for K-1 Global to announce these names.

We are very happy with these positive developments in our sport and for all fighters in the world who now get the possibilities to show their talent in K-1.

Simon Rutz

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