K-1 Fills Up Yokohama Card With New Fights and Musashi Ceremony

If you were one of the about 20 people watching the K-1 press conference last night (this morning in Japan/I am pretty sure you weren't), you'd see a more mundane, toned down K-1 head Tanigawa offer an apology to the fans, sponsors and media covering K-1 due to the recent rash of cancellations. It started with Giorgio Petrosyan pulling out from the K-1 MAX Japan show due to re-injuring his hand, then Ruslan Karaev pulled out of his fight with Jerome Le Banner due to a knee injury and then capped off two days ago with Taishin Kohiruimaki announcing his immediate retirement and pulling out of the K-1 MAX Japan show just days away.

In an attempt to rectify this, they went ahead and announced some more fights for the K-1 Yokohama show on April 3rd. Makoto Uehara will take on Kyotaro teammate at Team Dragon and hard-luck case Tsutomo Takahagi. Takahagi, whose K-1 record involves one win and 6 losses is looking to make a strong showing here and prove that he belongs on the K-1 stage, while Uehara is looking to get some momentum back after his loss to Singh "Heart" Jaideep last year. Mitsugi Noda will take on another confusing K-1 return, as he fights Prince Ali, whose last showing K-1 was less-than-stellar. Moving along in the same tier of fighters, but a fight involving some bigger names is Takumi Sato taking on Ukranian Sergeii Laschchenko. The biggest fight announced for this card is Gokhan Saki taking on Singh "Heart" Jaideep.

There have been a lot of questions as to the condition of Saki since returning from his injury last year, and questions about Jaideep as most have not seen much of the Indian fighter other than last year's Seoul Asia GP. This fight will be a great win for either fighter with both men looking to cement their spots and prove that they belong with the K-1 elite.

The length of the press conference was Musashi talking to the media, as it was announced that Musashi would not have another retirement fight, instead just a retirement ceremony will be held. He also talked about his long career as well as named his fight with Andy Hug in 1996 as his favorite fight, although it was a loss.