K-1 World MAX Japan
September 25, 2011 - Osaka, Japan - 5,410 fans crammed into the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium to see firsthand the long-awaited return of K-1 World MAX.The coveted K-1 World MAX Japan Tournament belt was up for grabs, and seven local stars plus one legend of the sport went to battle for it.
Aside from the tournament we had eight other fights on the card. From the first fight on the undercard where Taito put Yuya Kai to sleep with a counter left hook after being beaten down and on his last legs, the tone of the night was set. No one was giving up easily tonight. Such collective determination was enough to make many of the fans emotional to the point of shedding tears of appreciation during the event.
The reserve fight for the tournament was the first bout of the main card. Go Yokoyama is famous for his beautiful kicks and balance, while his opponent Yoshi is known more for the pure violence he unleashes when he has decided he’s been nice long enough. It was a frustrating fight if you were a Yoshi fan, as Go masterfully used distancing to keep out of danger while destroying the punchers arms with mid-kicks. In the latter rounds he mixed up the levels of his kicks and threw in a handful of the less orthodox strikes too. Yoshi had no answers for the kicks and distancing, constantly finding nothing but air at the end of his punches. While Yoshi never came close to being stopped by Go, it was a dominating performance by the southpaw to earn himself a unanimous decision. This put a fresh and uninjured Go in position to take over from anyone in the tournament that needed to drop out due to injury. Yoshi said his performance was terrible, and noted that he was so nervous fighting in the K-1 ring for the first time he could barely move until the fight had ended.
Albert Kraus, the first ever World MAX Champion, was the legend taking part in this tournament. He was the clear favorite to take the belt this year. His opponent was Kyokushin fighter Yuji Nashiro. Yuji is the younger brother of the famous world boxing champion, Nobuo Nashiro,
Kraus put the pressure on from the get-go and didn’t give Nashiro the distance he likes to work his own magic. He got in his face and stayed there. Nashiro, a right-handed southpaw, didn’t break though. While he looked frustrated, he did bide his time and planted a nice left to Kraus’ jaw causing the Dutchman to wobble drunkenly while Nashiro tried to finish him. There is a reason Kraus has had such a long career though. His ring-smarts got him out of trouble until the bell rang.
In the second round Kraus still didn’t quite look like himself. His boxing was outstanding as always, but he was allowing Nashiro the distance the he so dearly wanted. Nashiro made the most of it while he could. Towards the end of the round Kraus started pressuring with his combinations once more, but it wasn’t quite to the same level as earlier in the fight.
The final round began and Kraus was finally starting to look like himself again. He was landing a large percentage of punches, including a nice tripled-up upper-cut that looked like it stunned Nashiro for a second. I don’t think the cobwebs were completely cleaned out of his head though, as he ducked right into a nicely set up left high kick that helped wrap Nashiro’s shin around his neck. Kraus went down hard. The count started unusually late, but it was still a very groggy looking Kraus that somehow made it to his feet. The bell rang out to restart the fight and just as Kraus launched himself at his opponent; it rang out again signaling the end of the bout. Kraus had lost in the opening round unanimously. With a swollen right eye he later said he doesn’t know what went wrong. “I just didn’t feel right tonight. We knew he would throw that kick and I trained so hard with that in mind, but still made the mistake,” he explained
Chute Boxe influenced fighter Hiroki Nakajima was the runner up of last year’s tournament. Expectations were high for him this year, but he was facing the significantly lankier RISE Champion Takafumi Morita. He was also coming of a serious shoulder injury; however after having spent time in Brazil training for this the impression was that he had healed. He landed his usual punches on Morita, but they looked like they lacked the power and crispness they’ve had in the past. Morita walked right threw them, and almost over Nakajima. Knees, punches and high-kicks were in abundance throughout the three rounds, and most were delivered by Morita. Nakajima really never got in the fight, and it was clear the result would go against him by the judges even before they had made their announcement. He unsuccessfully tried to hold back tears later in the night when discussing the fight, and said he felt like he really needed to reassess his future in the game.
The first of the second block tournament fights was a revenge bout between the veteran Yuya Yamamoto and Koshien graduate Shintaro Matsukura. When they met in Krush, Matsukura pulled off the biggest upset of the night, and Yuya has promised he wouldn’t let it happen again tonight. His determination was apparent from the opening seconds. He pressured Matsukura with a rarely seen jab, and unloaded brutal left hooks to his body and over-hand rights up high. The whole time he belted the youngster’s legs with in- and outside low-kicks. Matsukura must have wondered what was going on, because he spent the best part of the first round covered up and looking for distance.
In the next round he managed a little more offence, but Yuya didn’t ease up at all. Barely sweating he kept up the same pace as in the first round, and was quick to get out of danger whenever Matsukura attacked.
Between the second and third rounds, Matsukura let go with a huge scream to pump himself up. He let go and went with Yuya’s pressure. When Yuya came in he threw bombs, and even jumping knees landed on their target. Yuya just smiled and kept drilling him with the low kicks and body shots that he’d already tattooed Matsukura’s body with. The fight ended and Matsukura hugged Yuya nodding his head. He’d been defeated fairly, and might have been asking for the rubber-match. He explained how bitterly disappointed he was in himself during his post-fight interview. As it was his first MAX tournament he said he was so focused on not getting injured for his later matches that he couldn’t concentrate on the fight he was in. “Worse than even losing is that I fought a boring fight,” he also added.
Krush -70kg Tournament Champion, Kenta made his debut in K-1 MAX tonight against ex-World MAX Japan Tournament Champion, Yasuhiro Kido. Kenta quickly went on the attack, but Kido kept his composure and used his height to avoid being hit. He whipped his high kick up at distances usually considered way too close, but seemed to have them meet Kenta’s guard every time. He was a little hesitant at times though, while Kenta remained busy with flurries of punches that were scoring points. One of those punches slipped threw a gap in Kido’s defenses in the second round. It hit him on the temple and he dropped vertically down like he’d been shot. He survived the round, and an accidental head-butt in the following round, but was left with no option but to stop Kenta to win the fight. He rocked the shorter fighter with punches towards the end, but Kenta, wearing the worlds’ shortest fighting trunks, didn’t let his work-rate drop and kept his wits about him. As the round ended we were left wondering if Kenta had it, or if perhaps Kido had done just enough in the first and last time periods to earn a draw. One judge thought so, but the others both agreed that Kenta had this one. Kido admitted to underestimating Kenta in an interview after the fight. “Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect him to be that strong. When I couldn’t really land my low-kicks I started to get a bit frazzled too,” he confessed.
The first of the semi-final tournament fights was then between Yuji Nashiro and Takafumi Morita. With both fighters having a naturally high output of strikes per round, it was fast paced. Their styles compliment one-another as they like to fight at the same distance. Morita was aggressive early on with his combinations typically consisting of 2 or 3 punches followed by a high-kick, but Nashiro was landing a sneaky left to his body every time they were close enough. Towards the end of the second round that body shot really started taking its toll. Nashiro was slowly building up his confidence in the fight, and forcing the flow to go his way. In the third he let go and was all over the previously undefeated Morita. He closed the distance to land, and was out of ranger before the exhausted Morita could do anything about it. The bout ended with him up a healthy 2-point lead on two of the judge’s cards. Event Producer Mr. Tanikawa said he hopes that despite his first ever loss, Morita should put off his dreams of retirement from fighting to become a full time cartoonist, as he just has so much natural talent that would be wasted.
Yuya Yamamoto and Kenta made up the other semifinal. Little did we know what we’d be treated too with this match-up.
Kenta took the fight right to Yuya as expected, but Yuya stayed relaxed and chipped away with low-kicks and his wonderful left body shot. This began to pay dividends for him at the end of the round as Kenta limped a little, showing serious pain in his lead leg. With blood in the water, Yuya went for that leg like a terrier but the bell soon saved Kenta from further damage.
In the second we were all thinking the same thing; two or three well placed kicks from Yuya and it’s all over. The kick that nearly ended it though was a left high-kick from Kenta. It slammed into Yuya’s temple just as he was moving to the right, causing the impact to be even more severe. He went down, and I was surprised he ever got back up from it. He somehow fostered the courage to do so though, and he knocked Kenta down two times in the round with powerful low-kicks after doing so. Both were called slips by the referee though.
In the final round, once again it should have been ended by a kick or two. Kenta has testicular fortitude of a level that even arcade game characters can only dream about though. He took insane amounts of punishment, all the while still head-hunting Yuya with crisp combinations. His leg may have felt dead, but his eyes were alert and his hand-speed was barely affected. As the fight closed, he fell into his corner exhausted and in pain. I can’t imagine how that pain must have felt when the fight was called a draw, requiring an extra round.
Once again, both men showed the world what it means to be a man. Yuya fought through being rocked again, this time from a flurry of more than 10 punches. And Kenta just refused, absolutely refused to go down to the numerous low-kicks that were finding their mark. He made a point of making the distance, but the judges weren’t on his side at the end and Yuya’s hand was raised.
This left us with a final between a relatively unscathed Yuji Nashiro, and a very battle wearied Yuya Yamamoto. Nashiro’s pace was relatively unchanged from his first bout of the night, and as Yuya was hurt and exhausted this left a huge gap between the two. Nashiro immediately went for the kill and took little time in dropping Yuya with a left punch. After Yuya’s last fight, I was surprised he even made it to the ring so when he summonsed the spirit to get to his feet and tell the referee he was ready to fight on it was simply amazing. That belt was the only thing on Nashiro’s mind though, he was unmerciful. He attacked the barely functional Yuya with everything he had, and forced the referee to step in and call the fight off. The K-1 World MAX Japan 2011 Tournament Champion, Yuji Nashiro was beside himself!
Last year’s champion Yuichiro Nagashima came back to the K-1 ring 8kg heavier than he left after a dabble in pro-wrestling. His opponent was the wild brawler, Kenmun. I guess after doing so much wrestling Nagashima didn’t seem to mind the brawling style, which left the fight looking like one of Bob Sapp’s early attempts at kickboxing. There was throwing, clinching, low-blows and soccer kicks to a downed opponent. Nagashima was of course the victim of all of these things, leaving him with a clear point win at the end of the bout for both yellow cards, and the one clean punch of the fight that knocked Kenmun off his feet. It was messy to watch and Nagashima disgusted with his performance. Kenmun seemed to enjoy it though, and said he would be willing to come back and fight under any rules, and as any weight between 70kg and 80kg.
In the first of two -63kg fights on the card karateka Kizaemon Saiga made an appearance against the Albanian Valdrin Vatnikaj. Valdrin trains with Albert Kraus and was of the opinion that he wouldn’t have much trouble taking out Saiga.
It turned out that Saiga’s array of kicks was just too much for him to handle though. Even though they weighed about the same, Saiga looked about 10kg heavier in the ring, and he was able to bully Valdrin around with those kicks. He never got close to stopping the bout, but he had the rounds won with ease. He latter said he wanted to fight in China, as he felt he was a much better representative for -63kg MAX than the current Champion, Yuta Kubo. He said he was a better fighter, and faced better opponents, adding in that his background is karate.
Yuta Kubo was actually fighting while Saiga was saying this, and he faced his first foreign opponent in the K-1 ring. Andre Brul is a German fighter with some 80 fights to his name. Kubo was the aggressor from the start though, and showed no respect at all. He dropped him early with a mid-kick to the stomach, and Andre was in serious pain. He beat the count, but was then forced back onto the ropes when Kubo fed him a knee to the bread-box which dropped him for the second time in the opening round.
The next round played out similarly, but this time Andre was only dropped once. Something seemed to click in him here though, and his aggression and offense went up a notch or two.
In the final round he really took the fight to Kubo, but the Japanese fighter just avoided his hands and occasionally reminded him of the earlier paid with a mid-kick now and then. When the final bell rang out, Kubo was up by 6 points on the cards.
In other fights on the card Yuya destroyed Akihiro Kimura in the third round with a flurry of punches there was no recovering from, and Naoki turned off Takayoshi Kitayama’s lights with a right straight.
The tenacity the fighters showed tonight is something more people need to witness and be impressed by. I can’t wait to see the next event. Keep checking back here for updates and announcements regarding the fighters in this event, and future cards. Also follow us on twitter at @k1_official so you can be the first to know when and where these announcements will take place.
5 October 2011
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