July Rankings: Middleweight Division

As we said last month, June was not heavy in big fights for  the Middleweight division.  A number of ranked fighters were in action, including Buakaw, Khem, and the participants in the 3 Final 16 bouts at the K-1 Grand Prix event.  All fights went pretty much exactly as anticipated, with no real impact on the rankings. 

A few fighters did have busy months, as Buakaw won a handful of fights in China, Khem took a tournament victory in Europe, and Albert Kraus won two separate fights, one in K-1 and one for Beast of the East.

The next big Middleweight fight is July 31, as #4 Artur Kyshenko faces #11 Hinata for RISE. That should be a great fight, and provides a huge opportunity for Hinata if he can pull off the big upset.

After that, It's Showtime has a show on September 12 that will feature #6 Nieky Holzken, #16 Gago Drago, and #25 Mootje Khamal.

The big upcoming action here is of course the remaining fights in the MAX Final 16, which should include most of the remaining top 10 fighters (aside from Direkci and, in all likelihood, Buakaw).  No set date for that yet, but it looks to take place in September in Europe.

We acknowledge that all rankings are inherently subjective, however we have set the following criteria to help determine rankings:

These rankings are meant to represent fighters throughout kickboxing, not only in K-1.

Rankings are based on recent win/loss records in the ring. 

Rankings are divided into two weight classes - Heavyweight, for those fights at 85 kg and up, and Middleweight, for fights at either 70 or 72 kg.