K1 Final 16 WGP

Main event is Overeem vs Aerts… Schilt vs Ghita should be interesting, good to see Hari in the mix too against Samedov. Bonjasky vs Manhoef… oh man. This is basically so stacked, I’m more eager to see this than I was for any recent UFC.

Damn…good thing I have Time Warner which has HDNet…oh wait. Fuckers. Hopefully,the fights will be online soon after.

All the matchups are really cool.

Karaev - Maeda will be the hidden “Fight of the Night” candidate, IMO.

As for expectations - I think Badr Hari is the best heavyweight in the world and should stomp through the competition this year (no pun intended…maybe a little…)

[quote]mldj wrote:
All the matchups are really cool.

Karaev - Maeda will be the hidden “Fight of the Night” candidate, IMO.

As for expectations - I think Badr Hari is the best heavyweight in the world and should stomp through the competition this year (no pun intended…maybe a little…)[/quote]

I hope we end up with a rematch of him vs Overeem… and I do think Overeem can beat him again. :wink:

[quote]Nikiforos wrote:
mldj wrote:
All the matchups are really cool.

Karaev - Maeda will be the hidden “Fight of the Night” candidate, IMO.

As for expectations - I think Badr Hari is the best heavyweight in the world and should stomp through the competition this year (no pun intended…maybe a little…)

I hope we end up with a rematch of him vs Overeem… and I do think Overeem can beat him again. ;)[/quote]

I think that the chances this to happen are very, very slim.
Yes, Overeem can beat him again, he’s powerful and has good basics, but keep in mind that Badr fought in the WGP Final (3 matches in one night) 25 days before the Dynamite!! show and was in pretty bad spirits. Normally, he’s the fastest heavyweight in K-1, but against Overeem, he was nowhere near that.

Mentally and physically rested, Badr Hari should be the favorite against anybody in K-1, IMHO.

And Overeem has pretty tough fight with Peter Aerts, he’ll be doing great if he continues, even only to the next phase.

Ah! Can’t believe I missed this! Oh well time to hit up the old internet for videos of it.

Ehhh… if everyone could just ignored my prior post, that would be awesome.

[quote]mldj wrote:
Nikiforos wrote:
mldj wrote:
All the matchups are really cool.

Karaev - Maeda will be the hidden “Fight of the Night” candidate, IMO.

As for expectations - I think Badr Hari is the best heavyweight in the world and should stomp through the competition this year (no pun intended…maybe a little…)

I hope we end up with a rematch of him vs Overeem… and I do think Overeem can beat him again. :wink:

I think that the chances this to happen are very, very slim.
Yes, Overeem can beat him again, he’s powerful and has good basics, but keep in mind that Badr fought in the WGP Final (3 matches in one night) 25 days before the Dynamite!! show and was in pretty bad spirits. Normally, he’s the fastest heavyweight in K-1, but against Overeem, he was nowhere near that.

Mentally and physically rested, Badr Hari should be the favorite against anybody in K-1, IMHO.

And Overeem has pretty tough fight with Peter Aerts, he’ll be doing great if he continues, even only to the next phase.[/quote]

Absolutely, but I think he’s a terrible match up for Aerts… we’ll see. As for the rest… well, I agree that Badr did not look like himself, he even had a huge bruise on his back too and just looked sluggish. He also is very fast, and has great aggression but does have some holes in his game. Overeem will bully him around like he did with Remy, and while that doesn’t win you points in K1 I think Hari can’t really handle that mentally.

Anyway let’s focus on the fights actually happening, lol. Who else do you think can win the GP when all is said and done? I would put money on Alistair to win it if the odds were right, even though Hari is rightly the favourite with bookmakers.

Overeem/Aerts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Hari/Samedov:

Schilt/Ghita:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Will see if I can round up the rest of the fights. If you have them,feel free to post 'em up.

i only saw a few fights live… manhoef held his own vs remy… it was impressive, should have gone to fourth round.

kyotaro is a weak.

Damn. I knew Overeem was big, but shit. One guy on youtube called him the “anabolic gorilla”, haha. Hari is fun to watch.

[quote]adarqui wrote:
i only saw a few fights live… manhoef held his own vs remy… it was impressive, should have gone to fourth round.

kyotaro is a weak.
[/quote]

Even though he loss to decision,I am getting more impressed by Daniel Ghita. He held his own against Semmy.

Semmy is supposed to be fighting Ignashov on Oct.17th for Golden Glory 10th Anniversary. If only it was the Ignashov of old.

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Damn. I knew Overeem was big, but shit. One guy on youtube called him the “anabolic gorilla”, haha. Hari is fun to watch.[/quote]

Yeah,tell me about it. I wonder if he injured his hand during this fight.{sarcasm}

[quote]Nikiforos wrote:
mldj wrote:
Nikiforos wrote:
mldj wrote:
All the matchups are really cool.

Karaev - Maeda will be the hidden “Fight of the Night” candidate, IMO.

As for expectations - I think Badr Hari is the best heavyweight in the world and should stomp through the competition this year (no pun intended…maybe a little…)

I hope we end up with a rematch of him vs Overeem… and I do think Overeem can beat him again. :wink:

I think that the chances this to happen are very, very slim.
Yes, Overeem can beat him again, he’s powerful and has good basics, but keep in mind that Badr fought in the WGP Final (3 matches in one night) 25 days before the Dynamite!! show and was in pretty bad spirits. Normally, he’s the fastest heavyweight in K-1, but against Overeem, he was nowhere near that.

Mentally and physically rested, Badr Hari should be the favorite against anybody in K-1, IMHO.

And Overeem has pretty tough fight with Peter Aerts, he’ll be doing great if he continues, even only to the next phase.

Absolutely, but I think he’s a terrible match up for Aerts… we’ll see. As for the rest… well, I agree that Badr did not look like himself, he even had a huge bruise on his back too and just looked sluggish. He also is very fast, and has great aggression but does have some holes in his game. Overeem will bully him around like he did with Remy, and while that doesn’t win you points in K1 I think Hari can’t really handle that mentally.

Anyway let’s focus on the fights actually happening, lol. Who else do you think can win the GP when all is said and done? I would put money on Alistair to win it if the odds were right, even though Hari is rightly the favourite with bookmakers.[/quote]

SPOILERS !!!

Well, K-1 WGP Final 16 is over.

On paper, this looked like the most exciting kickboxing card of the year. Some pretty good matches, but again, I feel that the expectations weren’t reached. There may be the element of holding back, before getting in the Final 8, still…

In the non-tournament fight, Taiei Qin and Catalin Morosanu started with a good first round, but 10 seconds before the gong, something rang from the crowd, Catalin thought the round was over and tried to touch gloves. Qin wondered for about a second and decided to go for the better option - to punch Morosanu in the head. The Romanian wasn’t hurt badly, got back in stance and fired back. When the real gong rang, Qin dropped his hands, and ate the second-too-late combo of Morosanu, which knocked him out. After we got our mandatory K-1 WTF moment, the main event began.

Bonjasky-Manhoef had predetermined outcome, and the good gameplan and the desire to win of Melvin only frustrated me more, while Remy won 2-1 rounds against a guy 30-40 pounds lighter…

Karaev-Maeda was a good fight, which once again hinted that Karaev has great skills and puts very entertaining fights, but his recklessness will be his undoing against more serious opponents in the Final 8.

Ghita began good against Schilt, but later Semmy found his range and in the third it was clear that he was too much for the Romanian. Still, Ghita managed to survive against one of the most dominant fighters in K-1 history and definitely has the tools to be one of the contenders.

Le Banner and Musashi fought a war and made one of the best fights of the night. Both were technically sound, even though they are part of the old guard. Jerome won, after dropping Musashi in the third, but I can’t see him winning against one of the favorites in the later stages.

Overeem-Aerts - color me impressed with Alistair. He fought very calm and technical fight - nothing like bum rushing the opponent, checked the leg kicks, worked the clinch, very good hands, add to that great cardio and there you have it - a win against Mr. K-1.

Not surprisingly, Badr Hari finished his fight with KO, after 1-2, going to the liver with the cross. Samedov could have continued, but he didn’t look like he was comfortable with the fight - Badr leg-kicked him pretty bad every time Zabit tried to attack, and it was starting to go on a one-way road.

Zimmerman and Teixeira won, but they weren’t convincing and while they both have displayed great skills before, I was pretty disappointed with them. Both their opponents hurt them in the third round, Teixeira came back after two extra rounds, and Zimmerman won the Majority Decision, after losing the third.

I’m curious about the match-ups between these eight - Hari, Schilt and Bonjasky still are the main favorites, with Overeem being the dark horse.

roidereem is ENORMOUS…

[quote]Big_Boss wrote:
Overeem/Aerts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Hari/Samedov:

Schilt/Ghita:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Will see if I can round up the rest of the fights. If you have them,feel free to post 'em up.
[/quote]

You can try here, but they aren’t from HDNet, so no English commentary: