K-1 World Grand Prix Tokyo - Final 16 Results

by D.W. on Aug 11, 2009 11:11 AM EDT in K-1 Comment 2 comments

kyotaro

The results are in, and Daniel Ghita pulls off what can easily be viewed as an upset victory, moving on to the World Grand Prix later this year. Ghita's low kicks were the story of the tournament, winning him every fight other than the Love fight, which the leg kicks had Love reeling and opened him up for a devastating left hook. Manhoef, the favorite, was not able to continue after his quarterfinal victory after injuring his shin throwing a few low kicks.

The shoes once again proved to be not a good idea in K-1 competition as Yosuke Nishijima was met by an onslaught of low kicks by Peter Aerts which proved to be his downfall. The K-1 Heavyweight Champion was able to pull off a victory with his new attitude and name, knocking out Jan Soukup with a right hook into the third round after being careful in the early goings.

Final: Daniel Ghita (1R - 2:19 KO - Right Low Kick) Sergeii Lashchenko
Superfight: Peter Aerts (3R - 1:24 KO - Right Low Kick) Yosuke Nishijima
Superfight: KYOTARO (3R - 1:20 KO - Right Hook) Jan Soukup
Semi-Final: Sergeii Lashchenko (2R - 0:24 KO - Right Straight) Brice Guidon
Semi-Final: Daniel Ghita (1R - 1:28 - Right Low Kick) YUKI (Manhoef injured)
Quarterfinal: Brice Guidon (3R Decision - 3-0) Rico Verhoeven
Quarterfinal: Sergeii Lashchenko (3R Decision - 3-0) Sebastian Ciobanu
Quarterfinal: Daniel Ghita (1R - 1:28 KO - Left Hook) John Love
Quarterfinal: Melvin Manhoef (1R - 2:16 KO - Punch) Ramazan Ramazanov
Reserve Fight: YUKI (3R - 2:00 KO - Punch) Prince Ali
Opening Fight: Yuto Watanabe (3R Decision - 3-0) Nobuhiro Ko
Opening Fight: Kengo Shimizu (1R - 0:34 KO) Shinkuyu Kawano
Opening Fight: Kazuo Doi (1R - 1:02 TKO - Towel) Katsuhara Ebisawa

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Ghita winning wasn’t a huge upset, knowing his opponents were either going to be outmatched or too broken down to put up a fight. I’m not taking Manhoef into consideration for the obvious reasons. And even if I did, Ghita kicks very hard and there’s no reason not to believe he couldn’t beat Manhoef. Although I don’t really find him interesting.

I expected Lascenko to gas although his first bout was a hard fought victory so I can’t really blame him – he was still the most entertaining fighter besides Manhoef.

Nishijima was too small for Aerts. Even when he lunged in he was barely able to reach Aerts’ head and all Peter needed to do was step back, clinch and knee him and it worked effortlessly. Nishijima’s body isn’t conditioned for kickboxing so he was systematically being broken down and really unable to do anything about it.

Kyotaro is so quick and able to beat his opponent to the punch rather easily – which is why I’m annoyed most of the time when he opts to throw half-arsed lowkicks.

by Jillykins on Aug 11, 2009 12:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Ghita/Manhoef being a semi, I would say Ghita’s win is somewhat of an upset. Then again, Manhoef hasn’t exactly been on a hot streak of late, but that would have been a great fight.

I’m with you on Kyotaro, though. He kinda handicaps himself.

I feel bad for Nishijima, he keeps getting thrust into crummy situations where it is pretty much impossible for him to win, but I guess that is his appeal.

by Dave on Aug 11, 2009 2:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs