It's Showtime: January 2012 Event Featuring Badr Hari, Tyrone Spong, Hesdy Gerges

It's Showtime will be returning to the Netherlands in early 2012, as the promotion has announced plans for a significant event on January 28th.

Simon Rutz has been stating for some time that he would have a pretty big announcement at the start of September, and the It's Showtime head delivered when the event was announced on Thursday. There was a general belief that the early 2012 event would end up being a heavyweight tournament - that is not the case. No bouts have been announced, but the organization has released an impressive listed of planned participants.

From the official It's Showtime website:

IT’S SHOWTIME will organize a huge event on January 28, 2012 in The Netherlands. The location and the fight card will soon be announced. We’re full steam ahead in the negotiations, but we can already announce some fighters which will participate to this event for sure: Badr Hari, Tyrone Spong, Hesdy Gerges, Daniel Ghita and Ben Edwards.

Perhaps not a heavyweight tournament, but those participants at least guarantee that there will be a number of relevant bouts in the division. This is major news, as the sport's heavyweight division has been woefully inactive through 2011.

Fans are sure to also be interested in a bit of information regarding K-1 that accompanied Thursday's announcement. Though the K-1 World Grand Prix 2011 Final 16 event rumored for October can still not be confirmed, It's Showtime has plainly stated that they chose to push this major event in the Netherlands back until early 2012 because of K-1's tournament plans. We'll have to wait and see what exactly pans out for both promotions in the coming months, but heavyweight kickboxing seems very close to making a real comeback.