Gotta love a Japanese NYE event
4 fights in;
- Kitaoka got ground out by Brooks while going for a leg lock
- Muxlow was gallant but a fighter out of Townsville just isn't on the same level as the former Strikeforce champ in Coenen
- Baroni and Sakurai slogged it out in a very tiresome and sweaty affair, with Sakurai getting the nod
- Manhoef hit Kang flush with a picture perfect knee to the liver that would've had Bas Rutten grinning from ear to ear, crumpling Kang and ending the fight quicker than it took them to walk out
- Bibiano is just too good on the ground for Maeda, putting him to sleep with a triangle after Maeda tried to scramble him off his back.
and after a brief intermission
SAKURABA!
EDIT:
Holy hell, Aoki landed an overhand right in the same spot twice, that made McKee tap out.
Time for Alvarez v Aoki III
EDIT2 (now with gifs i pinched from bloody elbow):
Well that's a wrap, what an awesome, awesome event.
MMA card ended with Karakhanyan getting a silly split decision win over Takaya (should've been unanimous but hey, Japan!), and then I marked out for 3 rounds a Kawajiri dominated Omigawa on the ground, and nearly locked in an arm triangle twice.
This was just a beautiful reversal
It closed with a feature kickboxing fight between Jerome Le Banner and Koichi, which ended abruptly in the 3rd after Le Banner landed a thunderous right that left Koichi on the deck. The old man still has it.
Had mixed feelings about the GLORY 4 Grand Slam Tournament. Much prefer K-1's 3 x 3 minute rounds, rather than GLORY's 2 minute rounds where they also stopped a fight if one fighter was leading on the scorecards after 2 rounds. 2 knockdowns in a round also ended the fight, whereas I think K-1 had 3.
But then again, it was a 16 man tournament which is 4 fights to win the whole thing, and in the end there was still plenty of action. My highlight would be Ghita's kick to Saddik's abdomen which ended the fight before it even got going.
Sadly, GLORY kicks off where K-1 started to lose audience interest; again Semmy Schilt won the whole damn thing, his 6th tournament win. He's such an awkward unglamorous fighter to watch, but he has tremendous effortless power. He KO'ed Ghita in the final with a left high roundhouse that Ghita had even partially blocked.
At least this Schilt came out more aggressive, rather than the previous jabbing/teep kicking point fighter he used to be.