TOKYO, Feb. 5 — The K-1 promotion kicked off its 2007 by hosting the Japan tournament of the popular 70-kilogram K-1 Max brand. Seven Japanese and one foreigner fought for the Japan crown, with the winner earning the right to be included as one of the elite eight to fight for the K-1 Max World Grand Prix title later this year.
The long and lanky Sato, a holder of two Muay Thai titles outside of K-1, has a big reach advantage over all of his fellow K-1 Max competitors. He is very good at landing hard low-kicks from the outside and has adapted quite well to K-1’s outlawing of repeated knees from the clinch, instead opting to throw his sharp knees from a distance.
One could even go so far as to say that he is the 70-kg version of 2005 and 2006 K-1 Grand Prix Champion Semmy Schilt (Pictures) in this respect — his knees are very deceptive and he has no problems getting them to his opponent’s head.
Iron Axe’s Tatsuji basically punched his way through his opponents, setting up a classic puncher-versus-kicker affair in the finals. The gifted Japanese fighter has a great talent of stringing together big punch combinations, and his body shots are nothing short of awe inspiring.
Sato used his reach advantage early, staying on the outside and tagging his opponent’s legs with smacking low kicks. Tatsuji moved around the ring looking to avoid Sato’s legs, when at the ropes the Japanese Thai-fighter caught him with a well-placed jumping knee to the head. The hard-punching Tatsuji fell to the mat upon impact, but managed to beat the count.
Sensing that the end was near, Sato came charging in after the referee restarted the bout and caught Tatsuji with a crushing running knee to the head that sent his foe crashing into the ropes for the final time. The referee could see that the fight was over and declared Sato the winner by KO.
With this win, Sato arguably becomes Japan’s strongest middleweight fighter, trailing only behind K-1 Max 2003 world champion Masato.
As with just about any K-1 event, this one too had its upsets. K-1 Max 2002 world champion Albert Kraus has made a career out of taking on the best-of-the-best in the K-1 — Baukaw, Souwer and Masato to name but a few. Tonight the multiple titleholder faced off against Turkish fighter Murat Direkci.
While Direkci, 54-8-0 (42 KO), is no slouch, this was his first time stepping into the high-level waters of K-1 Max competition.
On paper this looked like an easy win for Kraus, but nobody told the Turkish fighter that he was supposed to be the underdog. In a fashion that I had not seen anyone do before to such a high-level fighter, Direkci absolutely schooled Kraus.
The Universal Gym fighter tagged the former K-1 Max champion with a well-placed right hand very early in the fight that sent Kraus down for the eight-count. He followed this up only seconds later with another right hand, again sending the talented Dutch fighter crashing to the mat. By this time the ref had seen enough and declared Direkci the winner by KO.
The other big upset came in the Kohiruimaki-Ologon fight.
Koki, a seasoned K-1 veteran, took the Japan Tournament twice, with back-to-back victories in 2004 and 2005. His first match-up in the quarterfinals this time around was Bobby Ologon’s brother, Andy Ologon, with only two K-1 bouts behind him.
Once again, on paper Kohi should have easily taken this one, but Ologon showed that he has some talent, landing several hard punches that rocked Kohi quite badly at a few points along the way.
The Team Dragon fighter just couldn’t seem to score punches on the crafty Ologon, but he did inflict a lot of damage to him with low-kicks.
Kohi just looked bad in this one, plain-and-simple. The fight went to an extra round, during which Ologon scored a knock down before eventually picking up the decision.
It was a bittersweet victory for Ologon, as the damage he took from Kohi low-kicks prevented him from continuing into the next round, thus giving Seidokaikan Karate fighter Kazuya Yasuhiro (Pictures) a berth into the semifinals as a reserve.
2005 and 2006 K-1 World Max champion Buakaw Por Pramuk once again showed why he is the No. 1 fighter in his match against Mongolian Tsogto “Shinobu” Amara.
The Thai-fighter looked totally relaxed in the ring, at some points even looking like he didn’t know that he was in a fight. Yet despite this nonchalant and playful manner, he was still much more than what the Mongolian could handle, totally controlling the real estate of the ring and tossing Amara around like a rag doll from inside the clinch.
Buakaw really just phoned this one in just to show how good he is. In the final 15 seconds, with Baukaw at the ropes and Amara throwing bombs with KO power behind them, the current K-1 Max champion dropped his hands down to his own hips and just bobbed and weaved until the final bell, almost mocking his opponent. The fight went the distance and Baukaw took the decision.