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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Badr Hari’s “Mike Tyson moment” against Hesdy Gerges

By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2010

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Click the picture to watch the video!

At least he didn’t chew the guy’s ear off. However, what he did on Saturday night gave Alistair Overeem an avenue to make a joke that Badr Hari was booked for DREAM in July — giving MMA Twitterphiles a heart attack in the process.

The crowd heat at Amsterdam Arena for the Badr Hari vs. Hesdy Gerges match promoted by Simon Rutz’s It’s Showtime promotion was amazing. The Dutch crowds have always had great reputations for heat and this fight was no exception.

The lead television announcer for the fight set the stage this way:

“This is going to be an absolute war because, let me tell you, there is no love lost between these two men in the ring right now at all.

“In the black shorts with the red gloves, the bad boy, the Showtime Express, Badr Hari!”

Gerges slips in the first minute or so of the fight. Hari would tag Gerges several times in the first round and look really sharp.

“He’s certainly the world’s most exciting heavyweight, bar none,” stated the play-by-play man.

As Hari continued his attack, towards the end of the first round he clinches Gerges and basically tosses him into the ropes and the referee desperately tries to interject in-between the two men to stop Hari from pouncing on him.

“That was a storming first round!”

During intermission, you could see Melvin Manhoef in Badr’s corner.

Round two started and for the first thirty seconds, Hari absolutely unloaded a torrent of kicks and punches on Gerges and Gerges absorbed it and stood standing tall.

“It’s like a street fight, it’s great!” said the color commentator.

About 45 seconds into round two, Hari gets Gerges near the ropes and tags him with a couple of rights. Gerges falls down but it came off more of a slip. Anyhow, as Gerges falls to the mat, he’s trying to get up and Hari inexplicably kicks, with his right foot, Gerges’ face.

“NO, THAT WAS OUT OF ORDER!” screamed the play-by-play man. The crowd starts booing at a fever pitch — a pitch tinged with shock and raw anger. Gerges is down on the mat trying to recover from the kick to the face.

“That was not sporting at all. He didn’t need to do that. He has the skills to win anyway. He doesn’t need to do that.”

“He just gets a little bit too heated, doesn’t he?”

“The crowd has turned against the Golden Boy!”

“Could the Showtime Express be its own worst enemy? I genuinely believe it could be.”

While Gerges tried to recover with the help of his corner men, Hari went to a neutral corner and calmly looked around the ring and the crowd. At times, it looked like he had a grin, but mostly he was calm. It was eerie.

Two minutes after the kick, the referee tells the ring announcer to put the house microphone in front of Hari and let him speak. The crowd erupts in anger. Hari doesn’t say a word. As each second passed with his silence, the boos got louder and louder. Melvin Manhoef jumps in and takes the house microphone to try to calm the crowd down.

Every word spoken out of Melvin’s mouth gets the crowd angrier and angrier while he’s trying to make the audience calmer and tell everyone that he Gerges is the winner.

“Well the crowd isn’t interested and to be honest, neither am I. Really. … I don’t think any of these viewers are interested in what Melvin Manhoef’s got to say. At the end of the day, it’s not Melvin Manhoef’s show.”

Then. cheers erupt right as Manhoef finishes as Gerges’ hand is raised in victory. The camera catches Hari’s reaction — and he’s smiling.

“I don’t know what Melvin Manhoef said, and to be honest, I don’t really care.”

He was trying to save the bacon of K-1’s #1 foreign ace. Damage control is under way.

Topics: Media, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

10 Responses to “Badr Hari’s “Mike Tyson moment” against Hesdy Gerges”

  1. Mark says:

    That would be a career killer if he did it in America. But Japanese fans will want to see him back ASAP because they love (to hate) rulebreakers. Always have and always will. But anywhere else he’d be suspended for a year or fired immediately like Paul Daley.

    • jj says:

      really? fired immediately for throwing an illegal strike during a fight? so why isn’t every fighter in the UFC fired immediately after they throw a knee to the head of a grounded opponent?

  2. Coyote says:

    Well this is normal….

    ¿Why? because you know more the villain than the Hero. Hari is making money displaying the villain… and is just so natural.

    If this was happening in America, is the same ¿Or nobody remember Wes Sims stomp’s Frank Mir? ¿Or Diaz clown bro’s fighting with Noon’s family?. All companies need heros, but more important, villians.

  3. Chuck says:

    Question……why was it Melvin Manhoef (who was in Hari’s corner) the one to announce the winner? Am I missing something?

  4. edub says:

    The Japanese crowds, and (moreso) the brass at K1! is quickly tiring of Hari’s antics. This will not help matters at all.

    The guy probably needs mental help, or at the very least anger management.

    Melvin also got Kod during this event by Gohkan Saki. Pretty bad day overall for Mike’s Gym.

  5. Dave says:

    Seeing as though this is his second big league flip out, I don’t know what will happen with Hari. As Zach pointed out, Badr is trying to do damage control and will be bowing out for a while.

    Not sure for how long.

    Other big K-1 news is Remy Bonjasky is apparently done. He should blame Badr’s stomp.

  6. Black Dog says:

    I watched the fight; Hadi’s speed and conditioning were scary, he had this guy from the start.

    The kick after Gerges was down was intentional; Hadi was playing with Gerges by that point, and to do that was unprofessional and just stupid.

    Yeah, I can see why fans love bums like Hadi; he’s playing the heel beautifully, and seems to enjoy it. To me, it was just disgusting.

    By the way, the play by play guy sounded like Eric Idle…

  7. Hari dominated Gerges in the first round. In the second round it became clear that he would have a hard time to KO him though. He really tried to hit him with a lot of power shots and when Gerges was still there and even hitting Hari with some good shots he became frustrated and that was when the incident happened.

    During the press conference Hari was already very aggressive during the staredown with Gerges and even slapping him. The two had to be separated.

    Before the event Mike told me that Badr would go on vacation for 2-3 months like he did last year. So there is no “special timeout” because of “damage control”. It was planned anyway.

    I also spoke to Bonjasky right after the press conference and he told me that he definitely wants to be champion again this year and that he will fight soon again. A fight will be announced pretty soon. So either he was lying to me or the rumors are wrong.

    @Chuck: The ring announcer wanted Hari to say a few words but he declined. So Melvin took the mic and tried to calm down the crowd. Actually he was just standing there and repeatedly asking the crowd to be quiet so that he could announce something. It never happened and so someone else declared Gerges the winner.

  8. Zack says:

    Love him or hate him, Badr is one of the only athletes left in combat sports that I’m excited to see every time out. You never know what’s going to happen.

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