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One surprise in K-1 World GP in Yokohama 2009 TV rating
By Zach Arnold | December 7, 2009
Just the facts: 15.3% overall rating on Fuji TV, with the most popular fight being… Remy Bonjasky vs. Errol Zimmerman, 19.9% rating.
Before the fight between Zimmerman and Remy took place, Remy was asked in an interview why he decided to accept Zimmerman’s challenge.
“Well, uh, I believe it’s better to uh make the choice myself instead of that somebody comes and pick me, so that’s why I walked to Errol and said, OK, if you want to fight, I will take the fight so, I went and sat down next to him, yeah.”
The big question going into the tournament was whether or not Bonjasky would run into Semmy Schilt (who has not exactly been K-1’s favorite fighter to promote) in the second round and if he could beat him this time around. Bonjasky has always had trouble with bigger fighters — remember his fight on NYE a few years against The Predator?
“Yeah, it was four years ago when he beat me and it’s not going to happen again, I mean, um, we’ve trained a little harder and we’ve seen how um how people can fight against Sem because when you punch to his head, he will turn face around and that’s what we worked on and I believe I can manage to beat him, yeah.”
Unfortunately, Remy didn’t get past Semmy. In a post-fight interview, he tried to explain what happened and why.
“Well, I feel disappointed, I mean uh, I was almost at the final to defend my title but I made a mistake in the first fight against Zimmerman and he gave me too many low kicks and that’s why I uh I lost the fight against Sem(my Schilt). Yeah, I had too much damage on my left leg.”
He was asked by a Japanese reporter to explain what tactic he was trying to use against Schilt.
“It was a tactic to fight against Sem to work close on it and try to make the knees, I mean the hooks and that’s what I did, I ran out into him and tried to make the left knee or the left hook and I connected, that was the plan and that’s what we trained on but uh I couldn’t hit him again and that was unfortunate.”
Bonjasky, going into the tournament, had won last year’s event in controversial fashion due to Badr Hari acting as a complete heel in the finals and getting disqualified. He was asked before the event what he thought the outcome would have been if he had faced Hari in a re-match.
“No, I don’t think it’s going to be different. Badr got stronger, he got he looks more mature now, but I think if I fight him in the third time I believe I’m going to win because technically I’m a better fighter, I got a lot more experience and I don’t have to rush over him, I just wait until I get my chance and then I will get him, I will punch him, so a lot of fighters they walk into the ring and start to punch and start to kick but you need to have a tactic and some fights don’t have the tactic and I think I sometimes have the best tactic that there is and I take a lot of events from that, yeah.
I see that with a lot of fighters. There are some fighters that um do it with a lot of brawn and just instinct like Mike Tyson but I see more in fighters like Muhammad Ali, that’s a lot of brains and he uses his brain real good and that’s more something for me, yeah.”
If Bonjasky had beaten Schilt, he would have gotten that re-match with Hari. In the end, it didn’t pan out. One Japanese reporter after the Schilt fight asked Remy in an untypically honest fashion if he felt like he had something to prove to both the fans and K-1 fighters this year because of what happened last year with the Hari DQ result and how some fighters thought he was “fake.”
“Of course, you saw what I did. I mean, I was the only one that had a tough fight in the first fight, uh, but I had an easy fight, semi-easy first fight, not a difficult first fight, so I tried to show the fans and everyone that even I had injury, I was doing my best and trying to knock Semmy out.”
The other major storyline going into the K-1 event involved the promoters pushing the idea of Alistair Overeem as the MMA outsider who was vowing to take over the K-1 ring and become K-1 champion. Bonjasky was naturally asked about this before the Tokyo Dome show took place, given how many times he had won the World GP event.
“Yeah, I think if he wins the K-1, I think we should be embarrassed, I mean all the K-1 fighters should be ashamed at themselves because he comes from the MMA and tried to make us look like a fool and it can’t happen, it must not happen, I think Badr or Teixeira must stop him or Karaev, they need to stop him because I hope that they will stop him because he will make us look like a fool, yeah.”
At least Remy ended up getting one wish granted over the weekend.
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Having not seen the Fuji TV broadcast I don’t know if that fight simply came at a transition time or what, but it doesn’t hurt that a guy who’s put on the fight of the night two years running got the highest rated fight.
are those ratings good? i thought it was a pretty enjoyable series of fights
I enjoyed the Finals, apparently a few didn’t. Congrats to Semmy he deserves credit after that performance.
Badr just went gung ho crazy in the Final, I think in a way revenge over Overeem was his own personal final. Must have felt good for Schilt to pummel Badr in the Final after all those comments Hari made at Sem’s expense and their first fight in the summer.
Zimmerman is awesome. If he stays in shape and dedicated the WGP could be his. Hard to believe he’s only 22(?) He seems to save his best work for the WGPF and I thought he was worth a draw against Remy.
Gutted for JLB. Get an early flight next time Jerome!
And Aerts wasn’t bad either. Must have been the presence of Branko in the corner.
Lol, what was the purpose of the Bonjasky write up?vSeemed completley randon to me.
Really?! Errol Zimmerman, really!
Whatever butters their octopus sushimi I guess.
Yeah, he improved greatly after his performance at the final 16 against Glaube when he gassed and he also looked to have lost a bit of weight…..but he does seem to believe in his power too much and likes to live it up a bit too much apparently so…but i’m a fan. I’d rather watch Errol than Remy any day of the week.
Errol is only 23, he has years to get better, I think.
I’ll have to give him a closer look. The last fight I saw him in was Texeira and he didn’t look too interesting. Actually I wasn’t impressed with either of them. But a quick check on wikipedia says that was quite a few fights ago. I suppose I should have watched it more closely the other night, but I wasn’t expecting much so I kind of played it on fast forward. Well, off to MMAscraps to check it out again.
He didn’t look too bad.
I liked those body shots he was unloading in the second. Although Bonjasky just covering up a lot in that round kind of made me suspect that he was pacing himself for the rest of the tournament.
Zimmerman needs to work on his accuracy though IMO. He was putting combos together but they looked sloppy and missed a lot. That just wastes gas.
Unless he’s getting KO’d (Yay Alistair!) Ewerton has a habit of making anyone look boring. Did you catch his “fight” with Fujimoto at the Yokohama GP in 08? And the Final 16 this year with Jaideep.
Intolerable is all I can use to describe them.
I watched the overeem/texiera on fast forward also.
🙂
I pretty much expected that outcome ever since the first time I heard about that matchup. I mostly wanted to get to the meat of the event in the second bracket.
I did slow down to watch Kharitonov though…
That was just more weirdness to add to a weekend of fights with weird to spare IMO.
Yeah, Khari is a funny guy in that you never know what he’s gonna do….he took one helluva beating from Ghita. (who looks to me to be very much an on-top fighter himself)Nice to see Spong back with a win, loads have written him off already. He’s got time.
On an unrelated note, have you heard that Badr is fighting for It’s Showtime in May and his opponent is to be chosen by us, the fans! I had to vote for JLB. That’s the one fight (actually two, JLB-Manhoef is the other) I want to see before Jerome hangs up the gloves.
Yeah, I’m looking at Ghita now too. I was not familiar with him before so I checked him out on wikipedia and he’s only been with K1 for a year but he’s got a really good record. All wins by stoppage and 2 losses by dec, his first K1 fight and 1 to Semmy. Not bad.
What I thought was weird about Sergei though is that he didn’t try to check those leg kicks at all! Just stood there like he was nailed to the floor. And he’s been training at GG?! I think theres been something going on in his head. He’s been acting weird ever since the first overeem fight IMO (why wouldn’t he tap?).
Where do we vote for the Badr opponent?