Gokhan Saki Confirmed For It's Showtime January 2012 Event in the Netherlands

by Brent Ducharme on Sep 7, 2011 10:05 PM EDT in It's Showtime News

Gokhan Saki is confirmed for the It's Showtime event scheduled for January 28, 2012 in the Netherlands.

It's Showtime head Simon Rutz has stated that heavyweight kickboxing standout Gokhan Saki will be competing at the promotion's mega event planned for January 28, 2012.

Gokhan Saki has gone 5-1 since his last bout for It's Showtime, which was a May 2010 technical knockout win over Melvin Manhoef. The latter half of 2010 saw Saki qualify for the semifinals of the United Glory heavyweight kickboxing tournament, and also make it deep into the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010. Alistair Overeem was able to defeat Saki in the semifinal round of that tournament, as Saki was coming off of a close win in a brutal bout against Daniel Ghita.

Saki has fought twice in 2011, after taking some time to recover from the injuries he sustained at the K-1 WGP. The Golden Glory member was able to take home the United Glory tournament title with wins over Wendell Roche and Brice Guidon, in March and May respectively.

While there have been no confirmed match ups for the event, Simon Rutz has named roughly half a dozen top heavyweights who will be included on the fight card. Rutz has also notably stated that the event will not be headlined by a heavyweight tournament.

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This is huge

We haven’t seen too many Golden Glory fighters on It’s Showtime cards until now. If this is a sign of things to come, then we could be in store for some massive fights in 2012.

by magnetic on Sep 7, 2011 11:08 PM EDT reply actions

For sure. The best part of this is that it's not a tournament.

I know that will sound like a horrible statement to a lot of fans, but it’s true.

by Brent Ducharme on Sep 7, 2011 11:32 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm curious, why do you say that?

by magnetic on Sep 8, 2011 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions

It's too difficult to build up a real division while relying heavily on tournaments.

Even in the most established kickboxing division, the vast majority of fans are lost once you’re outside the top dozen fighters. Single fights in the heavyweight division should allow for a more ordered sense of things, match ups that need to happen can, etc.

Plus if you let some of the “big” heavyweight bouts just happen throughout the year, you can have them headline cards with important bouts in other divisions (bouts that It’s Showtime really needs to put together more than they are, because kickboxing is in a really sad state right now).

by Brent Ducharme on Sep 10, 2011 1:02 AM EDT up reply actions