Deal brings the world famous combat sport, K-1 exclusively to HDNet in 2009 DALLAS (November 21, 2008) - HDNet Fights announced today that it is partnering with FEG USA, Inc. to bring the extremely popular K-1 World Grand Prix and K-1 World MAX tournaments to HDNet. K-1 is an electrifying form of kickboxing that combines techniques from various martial arts disciplines. HDNet will be the exclusive home of K-1 in North America.
"K-1 is one of the most popular and exciting combat sports in the world and we're proud to present it on HDNet," said Andrew Simon, CEO of HDNet Fights. "If you are a fan of DREAM, you are going to love the explosive non-stop, stand-up action of K-1 and K-1 MAX."
"K-1 features the best stand-up fighters in the world and draws enormous crowds everywhere," said Mike Kogan of FEG USA, Inc. "We are very excited to have HDNet bring the 2008 K-1 World Grand Prix Final, 2009 K-1 World Grand Prix and 2009 K-1 World MAX tournaments to North American viewers."
HDNet's coverage kicks off December 6 at 12:00 a.m. PT with LIVE coverage of the biggest show of the year, the 2008 K-1 World Grand Prix Final. The event will be repeated later that evening at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. K-1 stages regional qualifiers throughout the year, which culminate in the K-1 Grand Prix, an annual one-night, 8-man tournament to determine the best stand-up fighter in the world.
The 2008 World Grand Prix Final on HDNet will feature the following tournament match-ups, which will lead to the crowning of the 2008 Grand Prix Champion:
* 3-time Grand Prix Champion and K-1 Legend Peter Aerts (62-21 w/ 28Kos, Holland) vs K-1 Heavyweight Champion Badr Hari (11-3 w/ 10Kos, Morocco)
* Errol Zimmerman (5-0 w 5Kos, Holland), Ewerton Teixeira (5-0 w 5Kos, Brazil)
* Gokhan Saki (7-1 w 4Kos, Turkey), Ruslan Karaev (11-6 w 6Kos, Russia)
* 2-time Grand Prix Champion Remy Bonjasky (33-8 w 15Kos, Holland), and Jerome Le Banner (43-16-2 w 29Kos, France).
(The participating fighters may change due to injuries or their physical condition).
The deal encompasses six events from the 2009 K-1 tournament and six events from the 2009 K-1 MAX tournament.
Heavyweight Aleksander Emelianenko (14-3), who was expected to last compete in July for "Affliction: Banned" before he was pulled from the card for still-mysterious reasons, today scored a first-round knockout of South Korean prospect Sang Soo Lee (10-5).
The fight took place at M-1 Challenge 9 in St. Peterburg, Russia.
Emelianenko used an early right hook to floor Lee in the opening minutes of the first round.
It was Emelianenko's fifth consecutive victory; all have come via first-round stoppage. Meanwhile, the loss snapped a string of four consecutive wins for Lee, a veteran of the SpiritMC and DEEP organizations.
Emelianenko, a PRIDE veteran and the younger brother of current WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko, is generally considered one of the world's top-15 heavyweights with past wins over Assuerio Silva, Sergei Kharitonov, Eric Pele and others.
Back at "Banned," Emelianenko was set to make his American fight debut against Paul Buentello. However, he was pulled from Affliction's debut event just seconds before he was set to weigh in for the fight and was eventually replaced by Gary Goodridge in the FSN-televised fight.
The California State Athletic Commission stated that 27-year-old Emelianenko failed to meet licensing requirements, though officials could not divulge the reason why due to privacy regulations. Although it was widely reported that Emelianenko had tested positive for Hepatitis B, his camp has repeatedly denied the claims when contacted by MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).
Kiril Sidelnikov, who next meets Buentello in the Jan. 24 "Affliction: Day of Reckoning" HDNet featured bout, also picked up a victory at M-1 Challenge 9.
"Baby Fedor," a Red Devil fighter and teammate of Fedor Emelianenko, defeated Jang Yong Kim (2-3) with a quick and efficient first-round TKO. Sidelnikov delivered a barrage of punches until his corner threw in the towel.
Jon Fitch is back in the UFC after a 24-hour window of free agency and my faith in the sport is restored. That’s correct, I had lost a little faith in MMA after watching a fighter with an 8-1 record inside the Octagon get cut.
I lost a little faith watching a guy disposed of like a piece of trash even though he had been nothing but a professional during his Zuffa tenure.
I lost a little faith seeing a hundred-million dollar company take out their anger towards the American Kickboxing Academy and Zinkin Entertainment on poor old Jon Fitch.
Sports is a business and MMA is no different than professional baseball, football, or basketball. However, the unfortunate situation involving Fitch being let go from the UFC for reasons unrelated to competition served only to momentarily compromise integrity of sport.
The Fitch firing never should have happened, but it did. The dismissal was too public to take back but given the circumstances, the best scenario as far as a remedy has now transpired. Fitch is back where he belongs and cooler heads have prevailed with both sides talk again in hopes of averting a further crisis.
Despite the situation being worked out, some fans are not happy and I’ve come across e-mails and forum messages blasting Fitch for allegedly comprising his principles. I have a simple response to that line of thought, which is: Are you kidding me?
Let’s remember, the reason why so many fans were upset in the first place was because there wasn’t a strong secondary option for Fitch. What made the cut hurt was that a fighter of Fitch’s caliber wouldn’t be able to continue on a stage that could rival the one that the UFC provides. The uproar over the situation wasn’t about Fitch leaving the UFC; it was about him no longer being in it. So now he’s back and we should all feel a sense of relief.
If there was a strong competitor to the UFC, then Fitch wouldn’t have been released in the first place. If this situation hadn’t been resolved in this manner, Fitch would have continued fighting but would have done so in front of less people and for less money. Fitch didn’t deserve such a fate. This isn’t a Randy Couture or Tito Ortiz situation; are people not forgetting that Fitch didn’t want to leave the UFC in the first place? Fitch was angry but he was angry about no longer being in the UFC. Do people not realize he had the rug pulled out from underneath him? Leaving the UFC was the last thing he wanted so cut the guy a break.
And before anyone suggests Fitch compromised his integrity by rejoining an organization that treated him so poorly, please bear in mind that we do not know what terms he is returning under. For all we know, Fitch may have received financial remuneration in exchange for cooperating with the UFC in order to help make all of the bad press go away. And the licensing deal he initially didn’t want to sign that he has now signed? How do we know that what he supposedly signed yesterday was the original deal he had been offered?
Sadly, we’ll likely never know the true terms that Fitch is returning under. If the UFC made it worth Fitch’s while to take them back, it’s more than likely that all parties have been sworn to secrecy as not to give other agents and managers future leverage.
Thomas Gerbasi, UFC - While 18 UFC fighters were competing in the Octagon last Saturday night in Las Vegas, another of the organization's warriors, Goran Reljic, was in a fight of his own back in his home country of Croatia - one to save two young people who had driven off the road and into the Adriatic Sea.
As reported by Croatian newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija, and here in the States by AOL’s MMA Fanhouse, the unbeaten middleweight was resting at his home in Zadar when he was awakened by the crash of a car into the water. Reljic ran outside to see what was happening, and upon seeing the car sinking, he ran into the water, broke the side window of the car and pulled both passengers from the vehicle.
Amazingly, he did this while still nursing an injury that forced him to withdraw from a UFC 90 bout in October against Thales Leites.
“Even suffering a severe lower back injury, and without any training and exercise in the past month and a half he risked everything, jumping under cold water and helping save lives,” Reljic’s manager, Zoran Saric, told UFC.com Thursday night. “When I spoke with him earlier today, he said “I wasn’t even thinking about my injury or about myself, I just dove into the water and started punching the window; there was only one thing on my mind, to save them.”
All parties involved in what could have been a tragedy are doing well, with no injuries reported by Reljic or the two passengers in the car. And when it was over, Reljic simply went back to his home. But witnesses at the scene weren’t so shy about this rescue, and their retelling of Reljic’s exploits has made headlines across Croatia.
And according to Saric, it isn’t the first time the 24-year old Reljic has performed such a heroic deed.
“Actually this is second time that I know Goran saved a life in the water,” he recalled. “Two years ago, he jumped into a wild storm near the cliffs in the Adriatic Sea, where a person was swimming and trying to get out the water, but the waves and current were so strong that they were pulling the person back in. I have no idea how Goran managed to pull that person out of the sea, but he did it."
