Are all the best kickboxers in Glory and ONE now?

[Broadcast]

Gafencu



Fabio Kwasi



Lambagiu & Stefanovski



Cozmanca



Catinas (he is training since months now in the Netherlands at the gym of Polanen)

 

[Broadcast]

Paraschiv

 

[Finding Deebo]

Paraschiv

Good replies. What promotions do you typically follow? I'm in the US, so I'm trying to broaden my perspective a bit.

 

[Broadcast]

Good replies. What promotions do you typically follow? I'm in the US, so I'm trying to broaden my perspective a bit.

I have followed over the years all the "longest" and most successful promotions in the world, from K-1 to Glory now, and before from It"s Showtime to Local Kombat/Superkombat (the best two on the European continent historically). And before for a while was also strong in Europe "Golden League". But only for a while. It"s Showtime and Local Kombat/Superkombat both ran 15 years!!!

Right now I am following all the Romanian circuit, from Dynamite Fighting Show and Colosseum Tournament, to OSS Fighters and Golden Fighter Championship. And even 2nd tiers promotions from Romania.

I am also watching Enfusion, I did not used to watch it regularly in Superkombat times, but it has improved since then. Still, Enfusion and the Romanian promotions now (since SK is defunct) are 2nd tier, they are not like Glory.

I am also scouting for talent in WGP Kickboxing in Brazil and in Tatneft Cup in Russia. I am playing videos. Sometimes but rarely Absolute Championship Akhmat (ACB) and W5 (but they are not really producing top fighters, just getting some names from time to time). ACB is focused on MMA, their Russian kickboxers are not much but sometimes they are bringing some known foreign names. Very rarely KOK. My friend Shadess will not enjoy it, but it is not my fault Baltic and Finland now are not yet good in the sport. We had regional winners from Estonia and Lithuania in Bucharest, they went on losing by KO in the 1st rounds. They used to look ok technically, but honestly I am not going to watch fighters without future. But there is development in KOK too, it is nice, plus the Moldovans fighters have improved the most there. KOK is regional, so the decisions will also surprise. Lately I was also watching Mix Fight of Germany.

I have also seen some Polish promotions with good production recently, but I am not going to watch them until they will not create any fuss internationally. The level is simply not good enough.

I also used to watch Legend of Russia and GFC of Dubai, UAE. But they were active VERY short time. GFC was not really serious though, Legend yes. Would have competed with It"s Showtime/Superkombat, but Legend ran only some months or 1 year and something? Fishy. Put grand shows, were closer to Ultimate Glory (Glory). Current Glory is less and less putting their 1st shows of history. You cannot survive 15 years with only grand shows, this is the truth. It is kickboxing, not UFC (PPV).

There is also Bellator Kickboxing but the challengers are usually crap. And they are not forming any new names as champions. In China I am also following but a little bit less since I am interested in at least Welterweights. I am big fan of the heavyweights, like in the golden era of K-1! From Kunlun Fight, to Glory of Heroes and Wu Lin Feng. All are solid. Here on Sherdog the Muay Thai fans used to love K-1 MAX, the 70 kilogram division (Lightweight). So they appreciate more the lighter weight classes. Some are not very much in theme with the big guys. They also watch Japan with the two K-1s now, lol, Krush and Rise. And Rizin, that added some kickboxing.

 

[Broadcast]

And ONE Championship, but their channel is a little bit messy. Mix between MMA and kickboxing. Most of their MMA champions have no real value for UFC level, but Asia is big and I guess they will improve. I dislike the fact they don"t have a different channel for Kickboxing! Some of their anyway less schooled fans, are laughing about "world class" kickboxers, when their MMA artists are crap at world level.

ONE will probably be a future big promotion. But so far only in kickboxing considering the acquirements. They still have to expand all the divisions, the weight classes.

So I guess it will impossible not to watch both Glory and ONE in the future, if One also becomes professional. Besides former K-1, Glory (under Dutch matchmaking), Dutch and Romanian promotions, at 1st and 2nd tiers nobody has been really professional. With divisions from the FW at least to the HW/SHW. Kunlun Fight has failed to develop the big boys.

 

[Broadcast]

Russia and France/Monaco also have several local promotions but they are not willing to put shows constantly. They are not under massive TV contracts. Artem Levin is fighting in one of those promotions. And in France usually when they get a 1-event TV contract, they have 1-2 good main events. But are not willing to make themselves a name.

Romania has about over 20 televised shows every year (even 2nd tier get national TV exposure, because there are a lot of money and competition; Digi Sport and Telekom Sport hold each 4 sports channels, Pro TV/Pro X are giants, even public TVR wanted to make money with some 2nd tier promotions, not to mention Look Sport with their 3 sports channels which are coming from behind). 1 event at every 2 weeks, but in holidays they are usually off. So in Romania as long they will feed kickboxing, and I don"t see this not happening without a law (very liberal country), the situation will be the same. 12 private sports channels behind, and kickboxing has good rating.

That"s more than in the Netherlands, where kickboxing was hunted for crime. Wrongly in my opinion. The Dutch scene/circuit is running a lot of events, but rarely some is getting national TV exposude besides Enfusion now. Many are "gym" promotions.

 

[Shadess]

-W5 isn't really a thing anymore
-ACA essentially does no kickboxing
-Bellator does almost no kickboxing, it's like one half of an event once a year in Italy, if even that anymore

Think also it's fairly obvious the quality of Enfusion has gone down. They can't hold on to any of their top fighters. Glory and ONE have taken nearly all their main guys. They've kind of started to pimp their guys out a little more to other promotions instead of doing their own thing and trying to claim they are just as good as Glory.

Never been a huge vocal KOK pusher like you are for all Romanian events. KOK is fine. I feel like they are a bit a weirdly ignored promotion in Europe, they are quite active and often do shows for decently big crowds. They also don't really have a lot of Moldovans anymore or seem to have that much to do with Moldova in general after they and FEA kind of split. FEA is mostly where the Moldovan fighters are.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it almost seems like you don't really follow kickboxing outside Romania all that much.

 

[Broadcast]

Now comparing 3rd and 4th leagues with Romania, obviously you can"t be very vocal. But knowing you are a big kickboxing fan from Finland even SINCE K-1 (I was reading the Finnish forum for a while), I mentioned that, I mean I am not disrespectul. More like 4th league apart Moldova. But yet again you say FEA is not collaborating with them anymore. Even though I thought they still do, because I have still seen some Moldovan fighters on their roster. I know they ended Moldova events in 2018.

Anyway, it"s a fantastic development. Waiting to hear also about Finnish and Latvian kickboxers! Lithuania has had potential since years, at some point I also know Daniil Sapljoshin of Estonia won the K-1 WGP in Warsaw, but at Europe"s GP in Romania lost to Ciobanu by KO in round 1.

I even said I am watching rarely KOK, because I haven"t seen major improvements. Even the Moldovan fighters, quite solid, didn"t make fuss on the big scene.

Actual KOK champions can"t improve if they still fight Polish and Baltic bums, sometimes Scandinavian bums. Instead of making them of fun in the real world, they should better send them to train in Ukraine or Belarus at Chinuk. Like they did the guys from FEA with some Moldovans, or maybe their gyms had anyway collaboration. Because Baltic and Finland don"t really have a background in any fighting sports to help. So it"s a long way, plus it"s a small area.

When I am watching WGP Kickboxing which is 3rd tier promotion for me, I am rarely watching others than the mainstays. If you want to reach the top you have to fight constantly against Dutchmen. Or to be the best quality from a traditional country. And I can say there are about 10-12 at least.

 

[Loriquero]

When I am watching WGP Kickboxing which is 3rd tier promotion for me,

Pretty awesome 3rd tier promotion if you realize Alex Pereira, César Almeida, Felipe Micheletti, Guto Inocente and Bruno Gazani came from that place.

 

[Broadcast]

Disregarding the fact that Romania is also a top 10 nation all-time in Greco Roman wrestling since "1896", you forgot TO ADD SOMETHING!!!! Sweden hasn"t won a gold since 2000 and Finland since 1984. Romania since 1988, but at least they were dominating in the 70s and the 80s, and not in the 40s and the 50s like Sweden and Finland AND BEFORE. Sweden and Finland barely have won any golds after 1952 and 1956 respectively. You can count them not even on the all fingers of one hand.

These schools still exist (more in Euros), but in stand-up is useless. Where is Hungary on any rules for example? Hungary still wins golds in European Championships of Wrestling, notice it is a Russian, Azerbaijani and Turkish business. Just because our nations still have "functional" schools, we are not producing anymore ELITES. At least if you would produce in kickboxing for example.

Moreover, how many are transitioning to MMA? This is the most important.

Now judo is not even a combat sport, but a martial art. But I want also to mention the record of Romania in Euro, 30 gold and silvers, Finland 8, Estonia 7 and Sweden 7, not the readers to understand anything else. In boxing Romania has 115 Euro medals (more than Scandinavia, Finland and Balts combined), 4th all-time. Poland is 5th for example, England is 10th.

Estonia does better in wrestling and judo, but it does not help on stand-up rules. I even said Sweden had some kickboxers in the past, my point was about Finland and Estonia/Latvia. WHAT DIDN"T YOU UNDERSTAND? I SAID THEY NEED "HELP" FROM CHINUK/BELARUS AND UKRAINE IN ORDER TO ADVANCE. HOW WOULD WRESTLING HELP IN KICKBOXING? I am talking as a whole, as a "school", not about exceptions such as Briedis and Helenius. Because you cannot produce dozens of Euro kickboxers at least without a school. Plus to be naturally gifted of course.

What did I say wrong? New KOK has no chances to produce top kickboxers without doing that and also feeding their mainstays gradually with good opponents. Like Moldova did. It is a long work.

Otherwise you did not stated these claims based only on pro KB scene.

I said fighting sports as kickboxing (boxing in order to help you for skills in KB). Europe is anyway crap at MMA. Besides Russia. But my discussion had nothing to do with MMA.

 

[Broadcast]

Now the Netherlands also not a huge school in boxing, but they went to steal it from the others for KB. It does not matter it is from Belarus, Ukraine or Russia, countries on your area. Coaches like Harinck traveled to Thailand. Others were influenced by Japan.

 

[Broadcast]

I suspect that you value only pro sport and TOP10.

Certainly not. But can you follow 4th tier? Do you follow Azerbaijan in soccer? If you are a coach, you have to ask yourself why your athletes are not good enough.

If you are talking about ammy KB, Latvia had produced considerably more medals than you think.
Yes, to be a pro kick boxer isn't that lucrative in baltics, yeah. What wrong with this?

I am not aware of all the editions, but in full contact? Feel free to post it. But notice a "school" is not like Lithuania-pro, with only Maslobojev. Oborotov was produced entirely by England. Not even Moldova has a school, and they have several pro-kickboxers now.

Hungary I know was top at World Champs, and probably also full contact from what I remember, with mediocre results in professional kickboxing.

So not sure amateur kickboxing is like the corrupt amateur boxing. Most of the WAKO-pros come from Russia, and in countries like Russia, Serbia, etc, they still have national kickboxing championships. In Romania they disbanded or were acquired by shitter bodies such as of Kempo. Serious kickboxers in the Netherlands, Romania, etc, are professional and are competing even in younger ages than 18 years old.

Anyway, I don"t mind of course having these athletes where to compete. Not all the countries have ok promotions. I just said, the current professionals fighting in KOK should school themselves in serious gyms in the area, from Minsk/Ukraine.

Yeah, WAKO for example isn't considered as something high etc but this Povetkin ( Russia ) too had competed there and he was ( Povetkin ) WAKO ammy KB world championship gold medalist.
---
I will not fill there bunches with long lists.
For example, in 2017 th LV managed to get silver and bronze in european WAKO youth and cadets championship. Small, yeah, country. They btw will not compete in pro KB.
---
Briedis also isn't only one guy from LV with achievments in amateur KB, others just are less known, therefore aren't mentioned. I too will not list all of them, cos I don't prefer type long texts.
OK, about just some examples.
For example one guy competed in KB 1996-2002.
Achievments were :
W.P.K.A World Championships - 2 gold medals.
WAKO World Championships - 1 bronze medal.
WAKO Eurasian Championships - 1 silver medal.
WAKO European Championships - 2 bronze medals.
WKA European Championship - 1 silver medal.
Then this wpka stuff was interesting, they sometimes used 10 and 12 rounds for KB fights.

Like I said, we don"t know how much counted WAKO for Breidis. Amansio Paraschiv for example had a father, ex-champion in national amateur boxing (he trained with boxing coaches too). Maybe he competed in many sports.

I understand where are you heading, that there is potential and talent. But notice Italy, Hungary, Ireland and even Germany are keeping winning medals (I suppose some in full contact), with limited success in pro-kickboxing. Do they give up or what happens? If I remember well, even Norway was a top nation, but I think that in semi-contact.

Maybe it"s also about coaching outside WAKO coaching.

I do know difference between A and B side guy and what stuff is a guy with short notice vs a guy with decent pre fight camp and long time to prep. Therefore I newer judged countries from their short notice guys. U.K boxing isn't judged from their journeymans ( no offense or insult, but short notice time before fight!) but scandi and baltic boxing is judged mainly from these guys.

Britain is a 3rd tier country in Pro. This means if you promote in England or in Moldova you can give some guys to the top. From England you can anytime expect to go up because of the boxing school.

Unfortunately most of the Scandis and Balts are not at the level of journeymen, they would be beaten by C fighters without problems from top.

Another guy, too was ammy kb er and ammy boxer.
You most likely think that LV did had only one Briedis guy.
Do you know about a pro boxers Zsolt Erdei and Alejandro Lakatos?
Lakatos was challenger v.s Erdei (hungarian) for WBO
World Light Heavy tittle.Lakatos, he lost on cards to Zsolt Erdei 12 rounds world tittle fight.
And yeah, Lakatos was legit cotender and not bad boxer. What connections this have with boxing and KB in LV? Lakatos lost fight with latvian boxer too. In Spain, and too on cards, like he lost to Zsolt Erdei. // I ofc know that usually only bad boxers from scandi and baltics are noticed , like they all are lemmings etc like shit. Denmark's boxing too is not well known, despite they too had good boxers. Yeah, not well known countries, then…. ppl think most likely they should be bad.

Yes, of course, my background is boxing. Erdei was quite good but a "champion" made by Germany, Lakatos was Euro level. Lakatos was a gipsy Hungarian ethnic born in Romania, who represented Spain. For me there is pro-boxing only in the US and Britain. Boxing is at the worst level ever. US boxing is dead.

Let"s not compare pro-boxing with pro-kickboxing, kickboxing in Europe is the best.

I don"t say there isn"t sport in most of the countries. But overall those nations have not given top kickboxers. We should not praise mediocrity so much, because some of us in here were quite good in sports also. Yet again Finland is very good in ice hockey. A very few countries are good in every.

You also posted one unsuccesful lithuanian pro kick boxer, why you didn't mentioned someone more successful ? Also, if about KB School in amateurs, please, take care and dig in following tournaments history: WAKO, WKA, also W.P.K.A European and World championships, preferably since 1996.

Which one? Hmm, WKA and WPKA are not really serious. We have worked here with all ISKA, WAKO and WKA. In my opinion most of the pros come from WAKO (probably?), but as a percent I think ISKA is more effective.

Yeah, that's true. There if about baltic, you should know that only Lithuania does have enough high respect from society regards to amateur boxing. I mean also gov support.
[] LV yeah, from 90 ies and later did not had high success in ammy boxing scene , there these 90 ies....then also small talent pool. Sometimes their boxers had 5-8th places in world championships or european championships, if we conversate about adults, male division. If I remember, from medals in adults ammy boxing - from 1992 till today: 2 bronze in euro ammy and 1 gold in EU ammy championship. ( EU is smaller, euro = there is damn high talent pool, from former Soviet countries till Ireland and UK ( they always does have very good amateur boxers in these championships ).

Maybe that"s why Lithuania has the most potential probably, alongside Sweden, on that list.

I know some boxers from Lithuania, not just kickboxers & MMAs.

Yet again boxing died in my country not because of kickboxing, but because of the scandal and corruption with AIBA.

If there wouldn"t be money left in boxing and prestige, this sport would die worlwide.

 

[Broadcast]

That"s WAKO-Pro, in WAKO Amateur they even have "musical forms". )

Yeah, in professional boxing they are all protected everywhere which can"t happen in kickboxing. K-1 was the best, no protection at all, many fights. But honestly the opponency outside the US and Britain now is really bad.

It was nice to talk with you! Just to know, I don"t disregard but they must work hard.

For myself, instead of being a very mediocre fighter, I would rather give up. Even to become a coach.

 

[Broadcast]

IMFA is really good but Muay Thai.

I attended WAKO and WKA-WTKA championships/festivals in my life. Karate also, kempo. Wondering if I will ever attend ISKA. I also attended WKN, but events sanctioned by them.

 

[Broadcast]

Semi-contact is not really serious for transitioning to either full-contact or kickboxing.

 

[Broadcast]

Steve Wakeling, Jordan Watson, Liam Harrison, Sugden brothers, Jamies Bates, Daniel Sam, are a bunch of solid kickboxers.

Some are retired or almost retired, not sure why nothing is coming from behind.

 

[pro striking]

this is a HL of Qiu Jian Liang he has beaten most of the best fighters in the world in kickboxing his record is ridiculous. Lots of big KO

 

[lukeuidswords]

this is a HL of Qiu Jian Liang he has beaten most of the best fighters in the world in kickboxing his record is ridiculous. Lots of big KO

king of spinny shit
wish he was in a bigger org though