Jan 2009
Jens Pulver vs Uriah Faber
01/23/2009 18:34
WEC press conference was today at a small bar in San
Diego. Not many press or people in general in
attendance. I took a video and a few pics on my
camera.....
New AMC social network
01/23/2009 12:12
I have been blogging in the forum on our new AMC social network. Head over to
amcmembers.ning.com or go to
www.pankration.com and click on
"socialize", you can also click the AMC Kickboxing & Pankration
link at the top of the page. You can catch up on
our daily activities in Ireland while preparing
for Rich Franklin's fight against Dan Henderson
and my most recent posts from San Diego with
Jens Pulver in preparation for Uriah Faber,
which is live this Sunday 1/25/09. Check it out
and have fun!
Dynamite/Dream, New Year's Eve...
01/01/2009 10:06
I am flying home from judging, directing, and
cornering at the annual New Years Eve event. As
always it was a spectacular event that is unequalled
anywhere else in the world. This was a cooperative
effort between Dream and K-1 and featured bouts in
both rules with individuals crossing over from MMA to
Kickboxing and vice versa.
MMAWizard trained fighter, Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, won his match by ref stoppage in the first round. Our game plan was to take it to the ground, pass guard, and finish with strikes. The game plan worked well and Mach won in fairly easy fashion!
Some other interesting bouts were the crossover kickboxing matches that featured DREAM MMA fighters against top K-1 kickboxers. The first was DREAM's Kawajiri vs K-1's Kozo Takeda. Kawajiri completely destroyed Takeda, KOing him in the first round. Next was DREAM's Allistar Oveream vs K-1 ace, Badr Hari. Again, Allistar completely destroyed Badr KOing him in the 1st to the shock of the fans and K-1 crew. DREAM welterweight champion Gregor Musasi was up next against top Japanese K-1 fighter, Musashi. Once again, the DREAM fighter easily beat the top K-1 kickboxer at their own game with another annihlation and first round KO! This was a great night for MMA as these K-1 fighters were truly some of the current world's best in kickboxing and the results were astonishing.
One final bout worth mentioning was the match between last minute replacement, Melvin Manhoef and Mark Hunt. Hunt was a K-1 champion and had about 100 pounds in size advantage over Manhoef. Hunt is well know for being able to walk through anything his opponents can dish out, I have even seen him shrug off a flush Cro Cop high kick with out blinking. The much smaller Manhoef, however, had to throw only 2 punches while backpeddaling from a charging Hunt. Hunt crumpled to the canvas while Manhoef followed up with a few more to the unconscious Hunt as the ref jumped in and called the KO!
All in all, in was an exciting night of fights that sends us into 2009 with excitement and high hopes for the DREAM/K1 connection to bring Japanese MMA events back to the top!
MMAWizard trained fighter, Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, won his match by ref stoppage in the first round. Our game plan was to take it to the ground, pass guard, and finish with strikes. The game plan worked well and Mach won in fairly easy fashion!
Some other interesting bouts were the crossover kickboxing matches that featured DREAM MMA fighters against top K-1 kickboxers. The first was DREAM's Kawajiri vs K-1's Kozo Takeda. Kawajiri completely destroyed Takeda, KOing him in the first round. Next was DREAM's Allistar Oveream vs K-1 ace, Badr Hari. Again, Allistar completely destroyed Badr KOing him in the 1st to the shock of the fans and K-1 crew. DREAM welterweight champion Gregor Musasi was up next against top Japanese K-1 fighter, Musashi. Once again, the DREAM fighter easily beat the top K-1 kickboxer at their own game with another annihlation and first round KO! This was a great night for MMA as these K-1 fighters were truly some of the current world's best in kickboxing and the results were astonishing.
One final bout worth mentioning was the match between last minute replacement, Melvin Manhoef and Mark Hunt. Hunt was a K-1 champion and had about 100 pounds in size advantage over Manhoef. Hunt is well know for being able to walk through anything his opponents can dish out, I have even seen him shrug off a flush Cro Cop high kick with out blinking. The much smaller Manhoef, however, had to throw only 2 punches while backpeddaling from a charging Hunt. Hunt crumpled to the canvas while Manhoef followed up with a few more to the unconscious Hunt as the ref jumped in and called the KO!
All in all, in was an exciting night of fights that sends us into 2009 with excitement and high hopes for the DREAM/K1 connection to bring Japanese MMA events back to the top!