About people being more into striking; that is very true. That is why Chuck Norris started up the World Combat League, even though the WCL is a seriously flawed product. Seems more like gymnastic point sparing than real fighting. And the stupid rules (no “passivity”, no clinching, etc.) messes u(Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, Jay Strongbow, Pat Patterson, et al)
fights because fighters who clearly have no punching ability would start wind-mill punching and it looks retarded.

the Hiroya push is terrible, they setup that tournament for him last year and he couldn’t win. and yet they’re still pushing him.

as for the K-1 Yokohama event, can anyone beat Schilt? the guy uses his size extremely effectively, but he doesn’t seem very marketable. Hari opened a can of whoopass on Sefo, i got into K-1 only last year so i’ve never seen Sefo do well. props to Feitosa for finishing with his trademark move. the battle of the Japanese HWs ended like i thought, seems like Sawayashiki was a fluke

I’ll admit, watching the last MAX show, the push they are giving HIROYA is hilarious. K-1 WORLD MAX YOUTH = HIROYA push. Its so blatant.

Why aren’t more people into kickboxing, mainly K-1 MAX? Its been entertaining since the start. I can usually stomach a K-1 MAX show over the average UFC card, to be honest.

I’d disagree that they tailor brackets to favor Masato. He’s never really had an easy opening fight. Some shady judging (Masato/Buakaw I immediately comes to mind), but no real tailored opponents in the GPs. He’s had:

‘08: Virgil – very game opponent
‘07: Buakaw – not much needs to be said about that.
‘06: Kohi – and the winner of Souwer/Virgil after that.
‘05: Zambidis – not a fun opener. The winner of Kohi/Souwer would have been after that had he not withdrawn.
‘04: He got a gimme here, but still had Kraus in the second round.

It’s a shame that they stay quiet during the K-1 MAX fights. A lot of MMA fans are critical of American MMA fans for being Pro-American and not being too accepting of foreign fighters. But I think Japanese fight fans are more nationalistic to be honest. PRIDE had a lot of gaijin, K-1 is mostly gaijin. But there is clear favoritism towards the Japanese, from both the fans and the organization.

But what I don’t understand about K-1 is this: Given that K-1 wants so hard to have a Japanese ace as a champion and give them so many favours, why do they even bother keeping around gaijin fighters like Buakaw and Andy Souwer when they pose a real threat to Masato’s chances? They changed the rules to favor Masato (1 knee in the clinch only), they purposely tailor the brackets to favor Masato, they create a 100 kg belt to try to make sure that Musashi would actually be a champion (and that plan failed. Musashi is washed up, whether he fights at 100 kg or openweight), they are pushing the hell out of this Hiroya kid, etc. They shamelessly do so much to favor Japanese fighters that you wonder why they haven’t just outright decided to take Buakaw and Andy Souwer off the K-1 circuit altogether!

i was going to comment on today’s K-1 fights too so i’ll hold off for a while … all the big ones are up on Dailymotion

Speaking of K-1, Zach, have you seen anything regarding TV ratings for the last K-1 MAX (The Elimination Round event)?