Krush 80 - Full show posted on youtube

[rzombie1988]

Syuji Kawarada (red gloves) vs Koji Suzuki (blue gloves) - Possible double debut
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Yutaro Yamauchi(red gloves) 27-17-5 vs Kotetsu (blue gloves) 12-12-0
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Takuma Kawaguchi (red) 3-2 vs Kazuki Yamagiwa (blue gloves) 1-0
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Yuzuki Satomi (red) 8-4-1 vs Takeshi Watanabe (blue gloves) 9-14-2
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443/Yoshimi(red) 8-8-2 vs Comachi(blue) 16-8-0 - Women's Title Semi-Final
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Masanobu (red) 9-9-0 vs Hayato Suzuki (blue) 2-1-0
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwx8Fqqj-60

Takumi Tosaka (red) 23-7 vs Yuya Suzuki (blue) 10-13-1
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxsCNhf0hho

Yuki Takeuchi (red) 2-0 vs Kazuki Yamashita (blue) 1-2
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoCx2nOki20

Koya Urabe (red) 45-8 vs Reine Yannick (blue) 42-5
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lN9xpM_fNo

Taito Gunji (red) 5-2-1 vs Ryusei (blue) 7-10
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdoRK2i9pD0

Koto Hiraoka (red) 4-1-1 vs Emi Matsuhita (Blue) 17-8-1 - Womens Title Semi-Final
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byr2pjlEwuY

 

[Karaev fan]

Gunji Taito (who was fighting for the 53kg Krush belt) is a pretty interesting talent. He's still raw, but in a sense he represents the ideal that K-1 Japan is trying to manufacture.

The very first thing the K-1 Japan commission did back in 2013-4 when they announced that they got the Japan license was to announce that they were opening "K-1 gyms" headed by former K-1 fighters. That was before they planned their very first pro event. Then they followed up by announcing that they were reviving the Koshien brand and having a high school tournament (that tournament eventually produced Hiramoto Ren).

I was really bewildered since K-1 Japan at the time barely had any pull even within Japan. The first WGP talent they announced was mostly Krush guys. They managed to nab Soda Yasuomi from RISE, but Krush ended up actually losing guys like Noiri, Kido and (I think) Yamato as other gyms/orgs feared that Krush working under the K-1 name would strive to make their orgs irrelevant and started prohibiting their fighters from going to Krush. I had no idea why they were investing on holding amateur events instead of doing their all to start signing talent.

It became clear when I went to their first event. In the pamphlets they were selling, there was a massive manifesto written by Maeda Kensaku (then the head of the org) saying that he was going to build "A K-1 that will last a 100 years". His big idea was that the key to building a K-1 that "cannot die again" was to build up a base of amateur competition with clear paths to become kickboxers then eventually K-1 fighters. He basically said he was building a pyramid of competition, where people can easily partake in, but guys who excel there will steadily be introduced to the next level of fighting until they become pros.

Maeda after all was the guy who oversaw the old K-1 Koshien stuff, and as much derision as we gave that experiment, its undeniable that there are guys who partook in it like Noiri, Hiroya, Urabe Koya, Kimura and Takeru that basically stuck around and became stars. Heck, Urabe and Takeru probably wouldn't even have become pro if not for the fact that they saw Koshien going on when they were a kid and realized that there was a path to making a career out of fighting.

Over the last three years, they've really expanded the amateur leagues. In addition to the Koshien (for high schoolers) which now has three divisions and whose finals are featured on K-1 events, they have
- K-1 Kids for elementary school students
- K-1 Junior for middle schoolers
- K-1 College for College students
- K-1 Challenge for people of all stripes (split by talent rank)
- K-1 Masters for 40 year old and up

They hold these events every month or so and guys who win go on to fight in Krush if they want to. Gunjo is a model case for them. He was originally a kid doing karate in a local dojo, but joined a K-1 gym when he was 15 or so. He won the K-1 Challenge B-class amateur tournament, then got moved up into K-1 A class which he also won, went into K-1 Koshien and won that on his second try, then he entered Krush had 9 fights and is now its champion at the age of 18. He's not an incredible talent per se (hard to stand out when the peers in your age group are Tenshin, Saikyo and Hiramoto), but he's a product of the amateur system K-1 designed and spent 3 years running.

I'm still fairly critical of K-1's recruitment efforts, but you can see why they've been succeeding. Even though they don't go around nabbing the standout names in each division, and even the old K-1 MAX guys they've recruited have faded, they're a genius at growing talent in house. Practically the only promotion in kickboxing with a plan beyond the next quarter.

----

Unrelated, but highlights from the card besides Gunjo vs Ryusei
- Urabe looked good, but his opponent was completely unwilling to engage. He got flustered and chased Yannick. Yannick tried to counter him but was getting staggered by some kicks and punches whereas he himself lacked the power to hurt Koya. Ugly fight, Koya was very disappointed and was so ashamed he couldn't finish him. Disappointed in Yannick, heard he was skilled fighter with wins over Slimani and Rafi, but too much skills not enough fight
- The 45kg women's tournament was sloppy. Half the time it seemed I was watching sumo not striking. Hiraoka was the only recognizable name and she's been eliminated so not sure where that leaves the division. I think K-1 is seeing the attention RENA gets and is considering raising a K-1 women's division of its own, but no real standouts have emerged since Syuri left and KANA lost her title
- KO of the night obviously goes to Satomi. Didn't realize he had such ko pop

 

[Shadess]

Kunlun does much of the same.Theirs is a newer thing and obviously doesn't have the legacy of Koshien.

University/vocational school fights
Local level amateur fights (~130 events in less than 2 years)
Road to Kunlun events
The main numbered events

Every level leads to the next one, K65 had 2 guys from Road to Kunlun I think. More established Chinese fighters also go down like the next Road to Kunlun is headlined by Tian Xin from the main 70kg tournament.

 

[Sakuraba7]

Is KHAOS another brand that they're running?
Haven't followed the sport in years. Can someone give me the rundown?

 

[Karaev fan]

Is KHAOS another brand that they're running?
Haven't followed the sport in years. Can someone give me the rundown?

K-1 Japan/Krush/KHAOS are all different brands of kickboxing they run. K-1 Japan is still built around one night eight man tournaments featuring world class talent but focusing on 70kgs and lower. Their shows are now in Saitama Super Arena and getting like 8K audience (they will do a 20K audience event next March). Krush is a smaller, more inward focused org (about 2K people in Korakuen) that they run to raise new talent and sort out contenders. KHAOS is a tiny event (600 people) they do to test out experimental events. So far Khaos has done
- Battle Royale: One night 4 man tournament. Matchups are decided on the day of the event via lottery
- Teens: All fighters are teenagers fighting each other
- Money in the Khaos: 1 day tournament with a winner takes all fight prize
- East vs West: All cards are Kanto fighters vs Kansai fighters

In terms of the rundown. A year or so before FEG died, Tanikawa was finally forced to recognize the reality that Masato was retiring for real. Scrambling to make new stars, he realized that the bulk of Japanese talent were fighting at light weight and were actually below the MAX limit. In order to find the next star he reached out to the All Japan Kick Federation (the biggest kickboxing org in Japan at the time) to hold a K-1 rules tournament at 60kgs called Krush to identify potential stars.

By an odd quirk of history, the head of AJKF was caught for marriage fraud. That lead to the dissolution of AJKF and their staff being out of work. They decided to form a company called Good Loser and continue Krush as a regular promotion to replace AJKF, but with K-1 rules instead of kickboxing. Things went fine for a year or so. K-1 grabbed the guys who stood out at Krush and actually held a Japan 63kg tournament that produced stars like Yuta Kubo and Yamato Tetsuya. They also managed to make Koshien standouts like Hiroya, Noiri and Urabe Koya go pro.

Then K-1 died too and Krush was left as a kickboxing promotion which alienated its peers by affiliating with K-1. Most people expected it to fade out, but they actually kept the flame going for a couple of years and grew back into the biggest promotion in Japan between 2011-2014. In that meantime, an entity called K-1 Global had taken possession of the K-1 brand and started licensing its name outside of Japan. It went on to drag the brand name through the mud while Glory took possession of most of the star fighters (which of course faded) culminating in a disastrous "MAX" event that saw Buakaw walk out of the ring in its final. By that point things were so far gone that they apparently signed over exclusive right to the name to a company in Japan which partnered with Krush. That was in 2014 or so.

K-1 Japan actually had guys who could run a tight ship and they managed to get familiar names like Masato, Kensaku Maeda, Kohiruimaki and Sato on their committee. They've done events that are much smaller than the old K-1 ones, but built around in-house talent and strong matchmaking. Indeed RIZIN only got kickstarted because TV folks were starting to see that K-1 Japan was managing to reignite fans.

 

[Sakuraba7]

@Karaev fan Thanks for the rundown. A lot of it I already know, but didn't have any idea about KHAOS. I watched some of K-1 Global (EMCOM)'s first few events, they were horrible. I mean the camera work and lightning was PISS poor. It seemed like someone took an HD camera to some backyard event in 1993 in someone's garage.

At some point they just licensed the name off to the guy's running KRUSH, and ran the Europe events themselves. Or are the Europe events licensed off as well?

Tanikawa dumbass should have figured it out a LONG time ago most of the talent were in the lighter divisions. Has he ever even watched boxing in Japan, they're all below FW. I've ranted about it a lot myself back in the day (See also). I was really excited for Glory, thought they would do right where FEG did wrong, but they dropped the ball and I stopped following the sport around one of the mid-teen Glory events.

I'm a fan from back on the K-1fans forum BTW. Were you on there as well?

 

[Karaev fan]

At some point they just licensed the name off to the guy's running KRUSH, and ran the Europe events themselves. Or are the Europe events licensed off as well?

Not quite sure who the Europe events are run by these days. I think it might be licensed off, but it does have a website sharing K-1 Japan fighters info so maybe Global?

Tanikawa dumbass should have figured it out a LONG time ago most of the talent were in the lighter divisions. Has he ever even watched boxing in Japan, they're all below FW. I've ranted about it a lot myself back in the day (See also). I was really excited for Glory, thought they would do right where FEG did wrong, but they dropped the ball and I stopped following the sport around one of the mid-teen Glory events.

Exacto. So much of the fall of K-1 can be linked just to Tanikawa.

I'm a fan from back on the K-1fans forum BTW. Were you on there as well?

I was. Just for the tail end, but this was my ID back there. Glad to see someone from there.

 

[Snubnoze707]

@Sakuraba7

Without going into long drawn out posts, I don't really disagree with the points you made, just pointing out what K-1 managed to do in a 20 year span building a sport and creating a lot of money for fighters should be respected.

In the end they couldn't keep it going, and yes Tanikawa is an idiot and the major cause for FEG flopping.

I was on K-1 FANS back in the day too

 

[Karaev fan]

@Karaev fan Thanks for the rundown. A lot of it I already know, but didn't have any idea about KHAOS. I watched some of K-1 Global (EMCOM)'s first few events, they were horrible. I mean the camera work and lightning was PISS poor. It seemed like someone took an HD camera to some backyard event in 1993 in someone's garage.

At some point they just licensed the name off to the guy's running KRUSH, and ran the Europe events themselves. Or are the Europe events licensed off as well?

Looks like K-1 Global decided to shoot themselves in the foot again.

 

[Snubnoze707]

Looks like K-1 Global decided to shoot themselves in the foot again.

Ugh, I thought they finally disapeared.

It's K-1 Japan or nothing, these clowns put on horrible shows.

 

[rzombie1988]

I finally finished most of the Krush 80 show. I wasn't real enthused to watch 10 minute decision matches.

Taito/Ryusei was easily the MOTN. Taito looked great and I loved the facekicks. Almost no one else on the show even attempted those. Taito looked so much bigger than Ryusei.

I thought Yannick moved well, but the shots he did hit weren't going to lead to a knockdown. He's really fast and at least looks the part.

The women's matches were awful.

Hoping they bring back Hiroki Suzuki for the next one. He fought here on Krush 78 - and I really like his active style. Would love to see him take on some of the bigger dogs.

 

[Karaev fan]

I finally finished most of the Krush 80 show. I wasn't real enthused to watch 10 minute decision matches.

Most of Krush is lower level fighters matched up to make the divisions churn. I typically only tune in for the last 2-3 fights unless there is a tournament in play or unless its a stronger event like the China and Nagoya ones. This one was weaker than usual since they made space for the women's fights.

Next event Krush 81 (Oct 1) I would watch for Anpo Riku vs Gosyu Masanobu and Ozawa Kaito vs Saikyo Haruma. Both rematches, both high in drama, all fighters are good. Besides those not expecting that much interesting stuff besides maybe Toshi's fight.

 

[Lucas Coradini]

Do they hire foireigners?! I have a 45kg fighter that could eat these girls alive