MAX champ Giorgio Petrosyan

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Huge and unfortunate news regarding the MAX Japan event - it appears MAX champion Giorgio Petrosyan has dropped out of his March 27 fight with #5 ranked fighter Yoshihiro Sato.  It's Showtime, who handles Petrosyan's management, announced the news at Dutch forum mixfight.nl, stating that the champion needed time off to have surgery on his hand.  This is the same hand injury that Petrosyan aggravated at the MAX finals last year and that forced him out of the big Masato fight at Dynamite.  Reports are that Petrosyan reinjured the hand last weekend against Khem Sitsongpeenong in Milan.

Although K-1 has not yet made the announcement official, It's Showtime is indeed an official representative of Petrosyan, so it looks like this is not simply a rumor.

This is, without a doubt, very unfortunate news.  You hate to see any fighter injured, and this in particular was a very compelling and much anticipated fight.  For K-1, this has to be very difficult, as Petrosyan has yet to fight for the organization since winning the MAX crown.  As a newcomer to the company, they are no doubt looking to build him up to fans, and this was a good opportunity to do just that, while also potentially building up a new Japanese ace to replace Masato.  With Masato gone, they also need all the star power they can get, and the loss of the main event is no help in that area.

Some fans are now questioning the prudence of Petrosyan taking two big fights just two weeks apart (against Khem and Sato).  Always a busy fighter, Petrosyan has a very full schedule this spring, and with a full schedule, these sort of injuries can indeed happen. Moving forward, while I appreciate his hard work and would love to see him fight again soon, let's hope he takes the time needed to let this injury properly heal, and prevent it from becoming an ongoing issue.