I agree. I find rankings tend to reward a point-based style more and can lead to fights with excessive stalling, where a tournament encourages competitors to finish fights faster and not take too much damage in the process. The result is usually a sort of tactical aggression (or complete reckless aggression for some lol), really high paced fights with lots of finishes and technical finesse -- IMO it's the most important element of the K-1 era that has not been reproduced since it passed. I think the talent we have today is comparable to then (not for HWs, but definitely for the others), but even when they try to combine the tournament format with the league-ish based format within the same company, it just doesn't gel and lacks the excitement of the past because you will always be wondering how it would have went had someone/other people from a different promotion been able to enter.
I personally wish there was a K-1-like tournament for each of the major weight classes every two years that any fighter could enter, regardless of promotion or any of that. Do the whole shebang that K-1 did with the regional qualifiers, and lead it all up to a big finale where the finals are held on one big amazing card. A boy can dream.
