The big LEGEND Fighting event went down today in Russia, featuring a return bout between Badr Hari, Aleksander Emelienanko vs. Bob Sapp in a MMA contest and a four-man, one night elimination tournament at 71kg featuring some truly great fighters.
Results are as follows.
Reserve: Alim Nabiev (R3 – Decision) Vyacheslav Borschev
MMA: Eduard Vartanyan (R2 – TKO) Sergei Khandozhko
Just like with kickboxing, there are a ton of marquee Muay Thai fights to watch this month. I’ll highlight all the fights that you should know about and keep an eye on.
March 7: Phetmorakot Wor. Sungprapai vs. Phet-Utong Or. Kwanmuang
Both fighters here come off big wins. Phetmorakot beat Thong Puidinaidee last time out while Phet-Utong beat Mongkolchai Kwaytonggym a month ago.
March 8: Damien Alamos vs. Thongchai Sitthongsak
Damien’s title isn’t on the line here but he faces Thongchai, who until recently has fought at 135 and below. Thongchai’s last fight was at 137 for him and that’s where this fight is. Despite Thongchai coming up in weight a bit, it shouldn’t affect the fight too much as 135 and below is just much better talent-wise than above 135.
March 8: Petboonchu F.A. Group vs. Wanchalerm Aoodonmuang
This fight should be an all out clinch battle, just like their previous fight. Expect grueling knee exchanges and back and forth changes in momentum as both fighters tussle for position in the clinch.
March 8: Singdam Kiatmoo9 vs. Sagetdao Petphayathai
Here’s another fight in the series between Sagetdao and Singdam. Singdam’s kicking game at range vs. Sagetdao’s relentless clinching.
March 8: Chokprecha Kor Sakooncher vs. Mondam Sor. Werapon
Really interesting fight here. Mondam got an impressive win over Superlek Wor Sungprapai in his last outing on February 15. In Chokprecha’s last fight, he lost to Pongrit Chor Chunrgamon in somewhat of a lacklustre performance. Getting back on track against Mondam certainly won’t be an easy task.
March 9: Houcine Bennoui vs. Saenchai PKSaenchaimuaythai
Saenchai is back fighting around the world again, this time in Ireland against another much bigger opponent, Houcine Bennoui. This will be Bennoui’s toughest test to date. For Saenchai, it’s just another fight.
March 9: Nathan Corbett vs. Kamil Sokolowski
Nathan Corbett is back in action under full Muay Thai rules. Expect elbows galore.
March 10: Hiroki Ishii vs. Aikpet Mor. Krongthepthonburi
Hiroki Ishii is the Rajadamnern champion at 140lbs and is fighting another undersized Thai opponent, and one who doesn’t have a stellar record as of late. The question is, will he get another stoppage here?
March 10: Yetkin Ozkul vs. Pokaew Fonjaengchonburi
This will be Pokaew’s first fight internationally, and he faces the bigger Yetkin Ozkul. While Ozkul fights all the way up to 63kg, he isn’t that big himself. Ozkul also struggles with clinchers, and Pokaew is one of the best clinchers in the game so I don’t think the size advantage will play too big of a role here.
March 15: Saeksan Or. Kwanmuang vs. Petpanomrung Wor. Sungprapai
This is a really interesting match-up. Petpanomrung has been fighting at 126 and below lately while Saeksan moved up to 130 and below. Saeksan is an ultra aggressive, high octane, all out fighter while Petpanomrung is a highly dynamic and skilled young technician. Whatever the weight is makes it even more intriguing.
March 16: Simanoot Sor. Sarinya vs. Fahmongkol Sor. Jor. Laiprajean
This is the final of the Isuzu 142lb tournament.
March 15: Artem Levin vs. Simon Marcus
This is a fight between two of the best light heavyweight fighters in Muay Thai and has been anticipated for a very long time. The fight had fallen through three times previously but it’s finally set in stone.
March 24: Sanny Dahlbeck vs. Mauro Serra
Sanny Dahlbeck is back in action, this time under full Muay Thai rules. At just 21 years old, he has what seems like a very bright career ahead of him. He’s stayed busy with some amateur fights and this will be his first pro fight since his run in the GLORY 3 Rome 70kg tournament in November.
Just a week after GLORY 5 London there’s another good kickboxing show in the city of London, England, as Enfusion holds its first of four shows there this year.
The entire card is full of UK talent, with the main event pitting England’s Michael Wakeling, the brother of Steve Wakeling, against Pajonsuk Super Pro Samui. This will be Pajonsuk’s first fight in over two years, last having lost a close fight to Andy Souwer at It’s Showtime in December of 2010.
Right under the main event is Michael Wakeling’s teammate, James Snelling, who puts his undefeated record on the line against Pajonsuk’s teammate, Kaeng Super Pro Samui.
One of the top 85kg kickboxers, Andrew Tate returns to the ring for his second fight this month, having previously beaten Vincent Petitjean on March in France. He’ll take on the Dutch fighter Marino Schouten.
Also on the card are two women’s bouts. With the Enfusion women’s world title on the line at 54kg, Iman Barlow fights Alexis Rufus in a five round fight. The other women’s bout pits Amanda Kelly, coming off a big win over Julie Kitchen, against France’s Fatima Adib.
A full poster of GLORY 9 New York, which takes place on June 22 in New York City at the Hammerstein Ballroom, appeared today. Previously we just had a small promo banner to work with. The full poster reveals even more American participants on the card:
This weekend might have been a bit slow when it comes to Kickboxing news, but in Australia there was a battle between two big name Heavyweights by the way of Catalin Morosanu from Romania squaring off against Australia’s own Ben Edwards. The two were competing for the Kings of Kombat Heavyweight Championship, but I think most importantly, for standing in the Heavyweight division across the world. Morosanu has been trying to make his way into the elite for a while now, somewhere that Edwards has had experience.
It turned into a slugfest early on, according to reports that we’ve received, with Morosanu fighting the way that we all know he fights; heavy hands, looking for the knockout blow. Edwards, on the other hand, who hasn’t always been known as a technician, fought a smarter fight by going after Morosanu’s legs throughout the bout. Morosanu was focused on knocking Ben’s head off, which meant that he was not of the mind to check the leg kicks, which was his undoing when it came time for the judges to deliberate.
Edwards won the Majority decision over Morosanu, but it sounds like it was a very entertaining and exciting fight.
Badr Hari is a fighter who is known for being one of the most explosive and entertaining fighters in the world to watch, mostly thanks to his reckless style of technique and fighting with raw emotion. A composed and focused Badr Hari can be a very dangerous fighter to be standing across the ring from, but as we’ve seen in the past before, Badr is not immortal and there are holes in his game. The holes in his game were on full display in March when he met Zabit Samedov in the K-1 World Grand Prix Final 8. In fact, due to some questionable refereeing, I even had some doubts about that fight, with Badr Hari clearly going down at least once without him being counted down.
What I am saying is that Zabit Samedov knew to weather the storm of Badr Hari’s barrage and to look for the perfect opening while he is overcommitting to his punches and to land a flush shot on the jaw. That is exactly what happened today in Russia as Samedov and Hari squared off in the LEGEND ring; Badr Hari came out like a man possessed while Zabit Samedov was calm and waited for the right opportunities, knocking him down once in the first round (although you could argue twice, one was ruled a slip as both men went down) and then in the second round waiting patiently again and landing a huge right uppercut followed by a left hand that sent Badr onto his knees, refusing to get up.
To many fans Badr Hari is an immortal who cannot be stopped, so the talk of this fight being fixed or a work is buzzing throughout the fight community right now. While that talk is hard to dismiss without hard facts, it is also hard to support without hard facts, either. Some of the hard facts involved in this are that Zabit Samedov knew how to connect with Hari in their last meeting and could have simply adjusted his game plan accordingly to make short work of the Bad Boy.
Today is the day! The K-1 World MAX 2013 Final 16 goes down live from Palma de Mallorca, Spain live at 3:00PM Eastern time here in the United States. The event is the Final 16 of this year’s K-1 World MAX tournament, which means eight tournament bouts are set for the card, featuring Andy Souwer vs. Yasuhiro Kido, Buakaw Banchamek vs. David Calvo, Enrico Kehl vs. Henri Van Opstal and more! Tune in live, right here on LiverKick or via Epicentre.tv. Either way you do it, the event is absolutely free of charge!
We’ll be bringing you live updates from the event so keep refreshing LiverKick!
K-1 MAX Reserve Bout: Christopher Mena (R3 – Dec.) Chad Sugden – They were closely matched up throughout the first two rounds, but Mena scored a knockdown in the third round which secured the decision for him.
Final 16: Maximo Suarez (R3 – Dec.) Miodrag Olar – Damn, this was just an all-out war. Olar fought very hard, with super heavy hands but Suarez had technique on his side.
Final 16: Buakaw Banchamek (R1 – TKO) David Calvo – What a demolition! Buakaw knocked Calvo down early with a devastating punch to the liver, only for Calvo to stand back up, then get hit with another and was unable to answer the ref!
Final 16: Lee Sung-Hyun (R3 – Dec.) Charles Francois – Lee got a solid knockdown in the first round which helped to dictate the pace of the fight. Francois had a stronger second round, but Lee took the third round easily.
Final 16: Shane Campbell (R1 – KO) Wallace Lopes – Wow, Shane Campbell. Wallace Lopes missed weight and was docked a point but it didn’t matter as a kick to the liver (YEAH!) put Lopes down and kept him down.
Final 16: Enriko Kehl (R3 – Dec.) Henri van Opstal – Close, competitive fight. Van Opstal took the first round, but Kehl came back in the second round with the body shots that did some damage, following up with the same stuff in round three for the win.
Final 16: Zhou ZhiPeng (R3 – Dec.) Joey Pagluiso – One of those down and dirty fights that saw a lot of clinching from both sides. Pagliuso was given a yellow card in round three which made it clear that the fight would go in the way of Zhou.
Final 16: Elam Ngor (R3 – KO) Ismat Aghazade – Another ugly fight with Aghazade getting a yellow card for clinching. Ngor landed a body punch and low kick that put Ismat down, with him unable to answer the ref’s count in time.
Final 16: Andy Souwer (R3 – Dec.) Yasuhiro Kido – This fight was a lot closer than most would have expected, with Souwer being in control most of the bout but Kido landing some really clean shots. A cut was open over Souwer’s eye and it was inspected, but he was cleared to finish the bout.
K-1 World Grand Prix Qualifier: Frank Munoz (R3 – Dec.) Damien Garcia – God, this fight was AWFUL.
GLORY 11 Chicago is rapidly approaching, being a historic event that will be broadcast live on Spike TV here in the United States as well as featured a one-night, four-man Heavyweight tournament featuring Gokhan Saki, Daniel Ghita, Anderson Silva and Rico Verhoeven. Then, of course, there is the main event between Tyrone Spong and Nathan “CARNAGE” Corbett, a rematch from their controversial 2009 bout, which makes GLORY 11 all the more interesting.
GLORY have released their final card for the event today, with the whole thing looking quite interesting.
GLORY 11 CHICAGO
Tyrone Spong vs. Nathan Corbett
Karim Ghajji vs. Joseph Valtellini
Heavyweight Reserve Bout: Errol Zimmerman vs. Hesdy Gerges
Heavyweight Tournament: Daniel Ghita vs. Anderson Silva
Heavyweight Tournament: Gokhan Saki vs. Rico Verhoeven
The Tatneft Cup has had a great season this year and it all came down to yesterday for the competitors in the final round. Each fighter in the finals had won three fights to get there. The final match-ups were Dzhabar Askerov vs. Maxim Smirnov at 70kg, Alexander Oleinik vs. Dmitry Shakuta at 80kg and Hicham Achalhi vs. Dmitri Bezus at +91kg. Also, all three final match-ups were six rounds of three minutes. Along with the finals, there were three single fights.
In the 70kg final, Dzhabar Askerov showed a much more controlled side of his game. He wore down Smirnov with low kicks, significantly hurting him to the legs in the second round. In the third, Askerov landed a right knee to Smirnov’s face, sending him down. Smirnov got up but the fight was waved off by the referee.
In the 80kg final, two of the world’s top fighters at the weight in Alexander Oleinik and Dmitry Shakuta engaged in a very measured contest. Both fighters were very tentative to commit to effective strikes. To me, Shakuta seemed to just land more with Oleinik not doing much for a large portion of the fight. Oleinik was effective when he did commit, but that was rare. Oleinik took a unanimous decision in a fight that could’ve gone to Shakuta.
In the +91kg final, Hicham Achalhi looked to be significantly outweighed by Dmitri Bezus. Bezus moved and stayed on the outside, landing shots for the first three rounds and Achalhi started to find a spot for his punches in the second half of the fight. Achalhi walked away with the unanimous decision in another fight that I thought could’ve gone the other way. If anything, Hicham could really do with dropping in weight. I could see him even fighting at 77kg (170lbs).
There was a single fight for each weight of the finals. In the 70kg match, Enriko Gogokhia got a unanimous decision over Philippe Salmon who he dropped in the second round. In the 80kg match, Hicham El Gaoui took a unanimous decision over Alexander Stetsurenko. El Gaoui has had a coming out party of sorts lately, scoring wins over Aussie and now Alexander Stetsurenko. Stetsurenko has dropped his last three fights, albeit against top competition. In the +91kg fight, Dzevad Poturak took a unanimous decision over Ricardo Soneca. The fight was a slugfest and Poturak was able to impose his power on the Brazillian opponent.
Quick Results:
70kg: Enriko Gogokhia def. Philippe Salmon by unanimous decision.
80kg: Hicham El Gaoui def. Alexander Stetsurenko by unanimous decision.
+91kg: Dzevad Poturak def. Ricardo Soneca by unanimous decision.
Finals (6 rounds):
70kg: Dzhabar Askerov def. Maxim Smirnov by KO (Knee) in Round 3.
80kg: Alexander Oleinik def. Dmitry Shakuta by unanimous decision.
+91kg: Hicham Achalhi def. Dmitri Bezus by unanimous decision.
Today is the day, with that day being the one in which we find out what the K-1 World MAX Finals will look like. The Final Four is Buakaw Banchamek vs. Sung-Hyun Lee and Shane Campbell vs. Enriko Kehl in a winner takes all environment. The event kicks off at 11am Eastern time/8am Pacific and can be watched here on LiverKick entirely for free. So join me in waking up extremely early to watch some K-1 action on this fine Sunday morning (afternoon or evening to those of you beyond the Western hemisphere).
Ruslan Kobzev (R3 – Decision) Dennis Ippema
Zakaria Zougarry (R2 – TKO) Amil Shakhmarzade
Miodrag Olar (R3 – Decision) Babek Rustamov
Cedric Manhoef (R3 – Decision) Ismat Agazade
Alim Nabiev (R3 – Split Decision) Chad Sugden
Ziya Bayramov (R3 – TKO) Omar el Amrani
K-1 World MAX Final Four: Buakaw Banchamek (R3 – Unanimous Decision) Sung-Hyun Lee
K-1 World MAX Final Four: Enriko Kehl (R3 – Unanimous Decision) Shane Campbell
Tural Bayramov (R3 – Unanimous Decision) Marco Groh
