I recently spoke at length with Bas Boon on all things Golden Glory, from their K-1 domination to their involvement in MMA. The full interview will be up soon (and trust me, you do not want to miss some of it), but in the meantime I thought I'd share some information on Gokhan Saki. There has been talk in the past few months of Saki "squandering" his potential and that he simply couldn't live up to his hype. The tough loss to KYOTARO put doubt in people's minds, then his injury and loss in Korea made people just assume that he was "done." Saki lost his spot in the Final 16 due to injury, but will be back in action on December 5th as he'll fight in a reserve fight. This puts an astonishing 5 Golden Glory competitors in the possible mix for the K-1 World Grand Prix!

It'll be great to see Saki back in action, hopefully completely healed up from his injury. Saki has always been one of the most promising younger stars, and with fighters like Zimmerman and Teixeira having issues at this point, comparatively speaking, Saki still looks strong. No further word on the Reserve fight, but who wouldn't love a Daniel Ghita vs. Gokhan Saki all out war?

UPDATE: Dutch press is reporting that Saki's opponent will be Peter Aerts. This should come as no surprise since K-1 would love to keep Aerts' streak of participating in every GP alive. Now, Aerts finds himself in the same spot he did 3 years ago, where a reserve win and an injury in the main draw will put him right back in contention.