Where Art Thou, K-1 MAX in 2010? The Logistics for the Rest of the Year

I'm writing this on August 25th of this year, and to date there has been one big, official K-1 MAX show, a few fights cobbled onto the -63kgs Tournament, and two European primary tournaments which are no longer appearing on K-1's site as official parts of the K-1 MAX 2010 tournament. The only hints we have at there being more to come are on the K-1 MAX -63kgs Tournament results page, which still says in September we'll have at least five more K-1 MAX fights to round out the Final 16 (Nagashima, Kraus and Sato qualified for the Final 8 at the -63kgs show).

The problem is, after this show, we have heard nothing about the upcoming tournament or anything else K-1 MAX related. Also from what we've heard, neither of the finalists, Andy Souwer or Giorgio Petrosyan have been compensated for their most recent bouts with K-1, leaving a little bit of a stale feeling in the air when it comes to the future of K-1 MAX for this year. We confirmed with FEG USA's Mike Kogan last week that FEG's next shows are the K-1 World Grand Prix Final 16 and DREAM.16, but there was no word of K-1 MAX. Seeing as though the Final 16 is in October, a September K-1 MAX show seems nearly impossible to plan, promote and book.

In the wake of the complete lack of news, Final 16 fighters have their names appearing on other cards through the rest of the year, making the planning stages for K-1 MAX even more difficult. Let's look at who is going where;

It's Showtime 9.12
Mo Khamal vs. Rachid Belani
Gago Drago vs. Mohammed Medhar

Shoot Boxing 9.18
Andy Souwer vs. HINATA

It's Showtime November MAX Tournament
Giorgio Petrosyan
Gago Drago
Chahid Oulad El Hadj

Are you seeing how there are going to be some issues? The biggest hurdle appears to be the fact that both Andy Souwer and Giorgio Petrosyan  are tied up at different times, and the It's Showtime tournament having three of the possible Final 16 competitors (K-1 said Drago or Chahid orignially, but you never know). Heres hoping this gets sorted out and soon.