K-1 Reveals All the Details for the Remaining 2010 Season

After a rocky few weeks of some bad stories coming out of K-1, today we finally get some unequivocally good news from the company.  Through their official website, K-1 has announced (almost) all the details on the remainder of the 2010 season for Koshien, MAX, and of course the Grand Prix.  It's a lot of info, so let's jump right in:

GRAND PRIX

The Final 16 is set for October 2 in Seoul, with the GP finals to be held December 11 in a venue yet to be determined.  There will be no further qualifying GP's between now and the final 16.  Tanigawa confirmed that 7 of last year's final 8 would indeed take part in the GP.  Badr Hari will take part, despite his on-going legal troubles, and Alistiar Overeem has officially given up on landing the Fedor fight this fall, choosing to return to K-1. Not taking part: Remy Bonjasky, who needs 6 weeks to recover from eye surgery before resuming training.

The complete line-up so far includes: Hari, Overeem, Semmy Schilt, Jerome Le Banner, Ruslan Karaev, Ewerton Teixiera, Errol Zimmerman, Ben Edwards, Kyotaro, and Freddy Kemayo.  That leaves 6 vacant slots to be filled by fan vote and K-1's own whims.  If I had to guess, I would say both Peter Aerts and Gokhan Saki are a lock for two of those slots.  Other front runners would be Ray Sefo, Alexey Ignashov, and Daniel Ghita.  Other names I could potentially see involved are Hesdy Gerges, Singh Jaideep, Tyrone Spong, and Melvin Manhoef.

MAX GRAND PRIX

Thankfully, the MAX Grand Prix IS indeed happening, though the news isn't as thoroughly positive as the GP news. 

First up, they will continue the Final 16, although a date and venue remain TBD.  After that Final 16, the MAX finals will be a one night, 8 man tournament on November 8 in Tokyo.  That card will also include action in the 63kg division, featuring champ Tetsuya Yamato, Yuta Kubo, and Hiroya among others.

For that Final 16 show, they released a list of 8 participants: Giorgio Petrosyan, Drago, Artur Kyshenko, Chahid, Mike Zambidis, Mohamed Khamal, Vitaly Hurkou, and Su Hwan Lee.  Remember, Kraus, Nagashima, and Sato have already qualified for the Final 8, so there are 5 slots remaining, which means we still have 2 fighters yet to be announced for the Final 16. 

This list is a case of good news/bad news.  Good news: the return of defending champion Giorgio Petrosyan, who was potentially holding out due to a financial dispute.  Excellent to see him back and defending his crown.  Bad news: no Buakaw, no Souwer.  Buakaw I was prepared for, as signs have pointed all year to him not taking part.  Souwer on the other hand, is a shock, and a blow.  If he indeed does not take part, it would be very unfortunate, and would really lower the overall level of competition in this tournament.  Because Souwer has signed a fight for Sept. 18, it's possible he simply can not fit in the Final 16 event, which would mean K-1's slow scheduling here has really hurt them.  We'll see what happens and who fill those final 2 slots.

KOSHIEN

The Final 16 will be held November 20 in Tokyo.  They did not confirm this, but the earlier plan was to have the Koshien finals take place on one night and be separated from Dynamite, so this may be a one night, 16 man tournament.  Only big news here is that defending Koshien champion Masaaki Noiri, who has been on a roll since winning the title, will indeed be back to defend.  Other participants include Tsukasa Fuji, Keisuke Miyamoto, Mitsuhiro Ishida, Hiroki Akimoto, Ryuya Kusakabe, Shoei Hareyama, Ryosuke Sasaki, Koki Takeuchi, and Minoru Kimura.

Overall, this is very welcome news that helps ease some of the fears over K-1's immediate future.  Now, instead of gloom and doom, we can start getting excited for the months to come.