77kg champion Cosmo Alexandre, via www.itsshowtime.nl

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After a quiet summer, the kickboxing news from around the world is now pouring in.  Hot on the heels of K-1's big scheduling announcements, It's Showtime has announced a new year-end show.  On December 18, they present a show from The Sand in Amsterdam.  This is a different sort of venue for the company - a more intimate 1750 seat theatre that should provide a great setting.  The initial line-up is set and there are some good fights on tap. 

Mosab Amrani vs Mootje Khamal
Hesdy Gerges vs Rico Verhoeven
Cosmo Alexandre vs Aussi (IT'S SHOWTIME world title 77 kg max)
Khalid Bourdif vs Murthel Groenhart
Warren Stevelmans vs Kenneth van Eesvelde
Ashwin Balrak vs Anderson ‘Braddock' Silva

The fight that most grabs my attention is the title fight between champion Cosmo Alexandre and L'houcine "Aussi" Ouzgi.  Both are Muay Thai fighters, and superb technicians.  In the past year, Cosmo has been very strong, scoring stoppage wins over John Wayne Parr, Tum Madsue, Naruepol, and many others, often with his trademark jumping knee.  He was on an 8 fight win streak, almost entirely against top names, before dropping a decision to Nieky Holzken in May.  Aussi has a lower profile, but is a real threat to Cosmo.  His last big fight was a highlight reel KO win over Ali Gunyar earlier this year.  The 77kg division in It's Showtime has not yet really hit its stride, but this could be the fight that really puts this division in the spotlight.

Although it's not a title fight, the contest between It's Showtime champion Hesdy Gerges and Rico Verhoeven should be a good one as well.  Gerges has a fight in September against Rustemi Kreshnik, and back to back wins here would be a good way to capitalize on his momentum from the Badr Hari fight.  Verhoeven has been on the cusp of the top 25 for the past couple years, but has seemed to come up short in the big fights.  He'll have to turn that around if he stands a chance here.  Also of note: this show is only one week after the K-1 Grand Prix finals, which may indicate that Gerges is not expecting a call for one of the remaining wild card slots.

Also looking to capitalize on a recent win is Ashwin Balrak, who scored his biggest career win to date in May when he defeated Daniel Ghita.  His opponent, Anderson Silva, made some good moves last year, though has gone 1-2 in his last 3, with losses to Mourad Bouzidi and Adnan Redzovic.  Balrak should take him here, though Silva remains a threat.

Finally, Mosab Amrani v. Mootje Khamal is just an all around solid fight between two exciting, action-packed fighters.  This could be the sleeper fight of the night.  Khamal moved up from 62kg to 70kg this year to take part in MAX, but Amrani typically fights down at 62.  Not sure what weight this will take place at. 

The fall is usually quiet from It's Showtime, who often focuses on the first half of the year.  It will be nice to see them put on a big card like this during what is shaping up to be a stacked December.

It's Showtime champion Hesdy Gerges, via www.itsshowtime.nl

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Coming out of Europe this week we've got two interesting new fight announcements featuring top 10 fighters.

First up, the #10 ranked It's Showtime Heavyweight champion Hesdy Gerges has been added to the It's Showtime card on September 12 in Amsterdam.  Gerges will face Rustemi Kreshnik in a non-title fight.  This is Gerges's first fight since his controversial disqualification win over Badr Hari in May.  Gerges has been steadily moving up the ranks in the last year, going 7-1 in his last 8, including wins over Ashwin Balrak, Paul Slowinski, and Ruslan Karaev.  Kreshnik has a pair of solid wins in the last year over Rico Verhoeven and Tomas Hron.  This will be a big challenge for Kreshnik, but if he can win it, he will catapult up the ranks.

Over in the Middleweight division, #5 Nieky Holzken has signed to face Sahin "Kass" Yakut on October 16 at Golden Glory's United Glory show.  Holzken is on a 6 fight win streak, going undefeated since losing in last year's MAX Final 8 to Buakaw.  This will be his second big fight in a month, as he faces L'houcine "Aussie" Ouzgi at the Sept. 12 Showtime show.  Yakut, like Kreshnik, has been somewhat quietly building up his resume, with some good wins on the undercard of It's Showtime shows.  United Glory is billing this as a grudge match between camps, as Holzken is a Golden Glory standout, while Yakut is one of the rising stars for It's Showtime.  I like Yakut, but Holzken has looked better and better lately, and this should be another win for Nieky.

Finally, United Glory has made a few more updates to their World Series starting at this October show.  In addition to Holzken v. Yakut, they have added a women's MMA contest featuring Marloes Coenen and an opponent yet to be determined.  The MMA side of the series now includes Siyar Bahadurzada, Tommy Depret, Ruan Carneiro, Sergei Golyaev, Nick Thompson, and 3 more names TBD.  The kickboxing side still stands at Errol Zimmerman, Gokhan Saki, Mourad Bouzidi, Brice Guidon, Stefan Leko, Anderson "Braddock" Silva, and 2 TBD names, though with Zimmerman and probably Saki now fighting in the K-1 Final 16 on October 2, their involvement could change.

Gerges wants to fight Badr Hari again. via www.fightnewz.net

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Hesdy Gerges has a lot of attention surrounding him after Badr Hari DQ'd himself against Gerges at It's Showtime's Amsterdam ArenA event. That being said, the news and fallout have surrounded Badr Hari, with Gerges staying relatively quiet. FightNewz.net caught up with Gerges who discussed the disqualification and how he feels about fighting Badr Hari again.

"Of course I will give him a rematch, because we are fighters.

"I don't even have to say I will give him a rematch, because the rematch will come anyway.

"We are both at the top so the rematch will happen - maybe for this title (It's Showtime).

"For me it's not a problem, bring it on. I do this sport every day, I love it and I like to fight everybody because I'm a real sportsman."

Gerges said he would have preferred to have won the title by knockout or decision rather than on an infringement, but explained that Hari's illegal shot scrambled his senses temporarily after taking him by surprise.

Read the rest of the interview here, along with comments from Thom Harinck, Hesdy's trainer and formerly Badr Hari's trainer.

It looks like the next card from It's Showtime will take place on September 12th in South Sporthallen Amsterdam, Netherlands, which comes with little surprise. It's Showtime is easily the big number two when it comes to promoting kickboxing worldwide and has really hit its stride promoting events in Europe. The surprise about this event is that Melvin Manhoef is promoting the event alongside Simon Rutz. No fights have been announced yet, but the stable of It's Showtime fighters who end up on most of the cards can be expected.

The Bad Boy can't be tracked down by his management, who won't suspend him.

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Badr Hari has been pretty much the lone topic of conversation in the kickboxing world the past few weeks, first with his disqualification loss to Hesdy Gerges at It's Showtime ArenA, kicking Gerges in the face when he was clearly down, to his possible assault on a nightclub bouncer from back in February resurfacing last week and Badr being declared a wanted man. It is impossible not to talk about Badr Hari, really. Many fans feel like Badr is due some sort of punishment by It's Showtime and the European Fighting Network for his actions against Gerges. For some reason, It's Showtime/EFN have remained silent about the matter, with most fans simply thinking that they did not want to bring up the topic.

There were cries of conflict of interest as they also handle Badr Hari's fight bookings for him, and until now It's Showtime has not said a peep. Then a press release went up addressing the issue. Here is how they tackled the issue.

Considering this was the first time Badr Hari misbehaved at an IT'S SHOWTIME event (his other contravention was during a K-1 event), we, as IT'S SHOWTIME organization, leave it with this punishment. Badr has been told that a long suspension will follow after the next severe case of misbehavior.

The biggest concern our organization has, is that future kickboxers might think that this kind of behavior will be tolerated and/or valued. Kickboxing is a sport with tight regulations and anyone who does not live up to these rules does not belong in the ring.

We from European Fighting Network could easily have said that Badr would be suspended for the rest of the year, but that would have been a worthless punishment, since Badr probably wouldn't be fighting at an IT'S SHOWTIME event anyway this year. This is because he already indicated that he would temporarily quit kickboxing and that if he would start again, he would fight for K-1 at the end of this year.

This is very logical, as slapping a one year suspension on Badr Hari when there was zero percent chance of him competing for their organization before next year and they don't want to act like the fans are stupid. At the same time, a suspension, even if it wouldn't affect Badr would give a message to other fighters, although I'm sure some would doubt the validity of it due to Badr's participation in the K-1 World Grand Prix and not competing for It's Showtime.

Also, they tackle the fact that Badr Hari is a wanted man and not even they can get a hold of him right now.

The reason we have waited a week with our press release is that we first wanted to talk to Badr in private about this matter. However, up until now our only possibility to talk to him about what happened and about the penalties we will give him, was by telephone, 2 days after the event. We couldn't talk to him in private anymore than that because the police requested Badr to report himself at the police station. This request concerns Badr being a suspect of involvement in a case of the abuse of an Amsterdam doorman. This case was in the news a couple of weeks ago. However, Badr has not reported himself to the police and we also do not know where he is at the moment. We from European Fighting Network do also not know what the outcome of this case will be.

Oh Badr.

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I feel with this being the biggest story coming out of the weekend, it needs to be seen to be both believed and understood. This was actually, up until the illegal blow, an incredibly entertaining fight. Badr Hari always gives it his all, and was explosive throughout the fight. Credit has to be given to Gerges, who never backed down against Hari and was able to land some offense of his own and weather Badr's best shots. I'll say this now, Hesdy Gerges deserves another shot at K-1 and soon. I'd even go out on a limb and say if Badr Hari isn't ready for the Final 16 we should see Gerges given a shot or at least a spot in the Final Qualifier GP. It wasn't clear what happened here, if the ref thought Gerges slipped or was down by Badr's assault, as originally reported. If Badr was upset it wasn't called a down, he really didn't give the ref enough time to call it and just soccer kicked Gerges while he was down.

The one thing to take away from this is Badr Hari really is one of the best 'bad guys' in the sport today.

Badr Hari, post-attack via MixFight.nl

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This is straight from one of Head Kick Legend's contacts in the Netherlands, as it appears that Badr Hari has publicly apologized today for his actions at It's Showtime where he illegally kicked Hedsy Gerges when "down" due to frustrations with the referee in the fight not calling what he felt were downs. Of course this is no excuse for poor behavior, and it appears that Hari understands it. 

The big news, of course, is that Badr has decided to stop fighting for the time being. This could mean many things, including him missing the K-1 World Grand Prix this year if he hasn't pulled his head together in time for the Final 16.

Below is the press release issued by Badr Hari, including my [poor] translation.

During the fight against Hesdy Gerges at It's Showtime's gala in the Amsterdam ArenA, for the second time in my career I have made the same mistake again. This mistake, I lost the match that I had wanted to win. An action which I not only myself but the audience got disappointed.

I've thought about my decision and I have concluded that it is better for me to take time off for an indefinite period of time before fighting again.

I would not have time to prepare for a fight because I want to remove myself from this period and set everything straight. There is no penalty imposed by an organization, I'm doing this yourself.

I wish to apologize to the Amsterdam ArenA and Hesdy Gerges public offering for this bad performance. I hope after I've found myself again, people can again enjoy our sport.

Sincerely,
Badr Hari

All of this led to, well, Badr losing his mind again.

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Now, there is good news and bad news, the good news being that It's Showtime's annual ArenA show went down and looks to be one of the better kickboxing cards that fans will see this year. The bad news? Badr Hari's temper flared up again in a big way, and after being frustrated with Hedsy Gerges for not going down and staying down, Badr Hari who was handily winning the bout against Gerges let his temper get the better of him again and fans got a replay of the Remy Bonjasky fight.

This all went down in the second round of the fight, with the illegal kick from Badr putting a cap on an otherwise fantastic evening of fights. Badr Hari's second meltdown once again illustrates his rather fragile mental state at times which has always dragged down the Golden Boy's seemingly limitless potential. Still no word on the punishment, if any, which will be handed down by It's Showtime.

The main card had a lot of surprises which will without a doubt affect the upcoming K-1 season, as breakout star Daniel Ghita was absolutely dominated by Aschwin Balrak to open the card, leaving fans in doubt of Ghita's future, where before he was seen as one of the future big stars in the sport. Gago Drago once again disappointed against Leroy Kaestner, possibly knocking him down a few more pegs and continuing his string of spotty performances.

Yoshihiro Sato made the trek from Japan to help sharpen his skills against Pajonsuk, and in no way did it look like he was prepared for the challenge that he faced. The Muay Thai star was able to pick apart the Japanese standout and my best guess is that K-1 will pretend this never happened. Gokhan Saki made a return to form with a bang knocking out the always imposing Melvin Manhoef in the second round. Manhoef, of course, hasn't had the best luck over the past year or so, which makes the bout a bit bittersweet as two fan favorites who were in a hole, and one was going to dig himself out, while the other would slip further. Artur Kysenko and Murat Direkci rounded out the card, putting on a bout that fans in the ArenA were very excited about, with Kyshenko pulling off the win.

1. Aschwin Balrak (R3 - UD [5-0]) Daniel Ghita 
2. Nieky Holzken (R3 - SD [4-1]) Cosmo Alexandre 
3. Leroy Kaestner (R3 - SD [4-1]) Gago Drago 
4. Pajonsuk (R3 - UD [5-0]) Yoshihiro Sato
5. Gokhan Saki (R2 - KO) Melvin Manhoef
6. Artur Kyshenko (R3 - SD [4-1]) Murat Direkci
7. Hesdy Gerges (R2 - DQ) Badr Hari