Not many events in the kickboxing world can leave you speechless, but the retirement of one of Heavyweight Kickboxing’s biggest stars in the past ten years will do just that. The big secret announcement from It’s Showtime was originally scheduled for Friday but was then pushed back to today. In the meantime, word got out that Badr Hari would take on Gokhan Saki on January 28th for It’s Showtime. To many, this was the big announcement that It’s Showtime was trying to keep under wraps, but it would turn out to be much bigger.

Badr Hari has spoken about his desire to enter the world of Boxing for a long time now, much more seriously over the past year. This includes talk of possible Olympic Boxing that seemed to die off and talking with Michael Schiavello in a Voice Versus episode about possibly leaving kickboxing for boxing. Add in the steady decline of K-1 over the past few years and Badr Hari’s legal troubles and kickboxing became less and less his passion.

Tonight It’s Showtime sent around a press release announcing Badr Hari’s retirement from kickboxing on January 28th against his hand-selected opponent of Gokhan Saki. The irony is, of course, that Gokhan Saki might do exactly the same thing next year and pass on Kickboxing to enter into the Boxing or MMA world. It’s Showtime also casts some serious doubt onto the possibility of the K-1 World Grand Prix;

 If K-1 will host a World Grand Prix this year, Badr will also participate to that. The Grand Prix Final is scheduled for December 10 in China. If this World Grand Prix will take place, depends if K-1 will be able to pay its debts to IT’S SHOWTIME and others. If not, the fight on January 28 will be Badr’s only remaining fight as a kickboxer. 

This is huge, if not crushing news to kickboxing fans around the world and good news for Boxing.

If the only news that you pay attention to is fighting sports you might not have known that there is currently a bit of political upheaval in Thailand right now. In fact, there was a military coup that went down just days ago, leaving some areas of Thailand under strict military presence. Not all, though, some areas are untouched. Pattaya, where K-1 is planning their K-1 World MAX Finals event, happens to be one of the places under strict curfew. 

K-1 has been monitoring the situation and along with their partners in Thailand have decided to postpone the event for the time being. It might not be until July, but two months for a nation to get itself in order after a government is overthrown is a bit quick and they will wait out the situation before booking another event there. Kind of a bummer, we know, but it seems like the right call for this one. 

K-1 continues to chug along with plans for post-Japan Asian domination. On July 21st K-1 will present the K-1 World MAX Finals event, featuring Buakaw Banchamek vs. Enriko Kehl in the Finals. Some fans are expecting a repeat from December’s fight between Banchamek and Kehl, but that was under Muay Thai rules, making this fight all the more interesting. Kehl is a solid up-and-comer and has a lot of upsides to him. Banchamek was the biggest signing for K-1, but Kehl has to be the best prospect that they currently have and he does possess the tools to possibly defeat Buakaw.

K-1 has added more fights to the card of late, including Lee Sung-Hyun squaring off against Andrei Kulebin. Kulebin has been a solid name throughout the world for the past few years and should make for a fine addition for K-1 on this event.

The other big news is that former K-1 MAX and K-1 HERO*s star Andre “Dida” Amade has signed a new deal with K-1. Dida is perhaps best known for his appearance on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil recently where he was involved in a pull-apart brawl between Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen, with Dida throwing a few punches after Sonnen took Silva down in the middle of shooting. Dida landed in hot water with the UFC for that and was told that he was potentially banned from cornering fighters in the UFC, but things worked out for him in the end. He announced his return to the ring shortly afterwards and has now announced his intentions to fight for K-1.