K1 Oceania annoucement

[Dado]

From Dixon McIver:

"I know you all have been waiting patiently for the match ups and the construction of the Oceania region in which I can now release the official results. Over the past 5 weeks We have been working closely with K-1 as too a qualifying Oceania structure.
There will be know Oceania event this year where a eventual winner will proceed onto another qualifying event in order to participate in the 2005 World Grand Prix.
Instead 12 selected fighters from the Oceania region will be contracted for 3 fights between July and December. 4 fighters will be placed in 3 seperate pools where each fighter must fight each other once (3 events). This will mean that there will be 6 fights on each show which will be part of the qualifying circuit with 2-3 under card bouts. The first of these events will take place on our July 30th show the other 2 shows will take place on September and November (locations to be confirmed next week). With the match ups rotating on each of the shows this basically means that all 12 contracted fighters will participate on all 3 events.
After the 3rd show a standings table will show a leader in each of the 3 pools by way of a points system
Win 2 pts
Win by KO 1 bonus point
As these are all single match bouts there will be no points for a draw as there cannot be a draw on a 3x3 with the possibilty of 2 extra rounds under the K-1 Rules.
The winner of each 3 respective pools along with a promoters wild card choice will make up 4 participants who will qualify for the K-1 World Grand Prix Oceania Tournament to be held in Auckland on March 11th 2006. Thats right you did read it right Oceania will host 1 of the 5-6 World Grand Prix Series events in 2006.
The 4 Oceania representatives will be matched in an 8 man tournament along with 4 other international representatives in which the winner shall qualify for the K-1 World Grand Prix final 16 Elimination in September 2006.
This will be completed with 2 Super fights featuring Ray Sefo v TBC and Alexi Ignashov v TBC.
So there you have it in a nutshell and this system will continue for the following years etc. This means that Ray will not be fighting on the July 30th due to the structure change but as you can see this is far more important in the long run for the Oceania region. By the end of this week the Pools will be announced along with the first match ups on July 30th."

[danvari]

That sounds like an interesting idea. It should give the audience a chance to start recognizing fighters they haven't heard about earlier and thus build up a lot of hype for the Oceania GP.

I see a little problem with KO-victories giving the winner a bonus point though. If one fighter wins all of his matches by decision and another fighter wins 2 matches by knockout and loses his last, they will be tied for the victory of that group. I think KO-victories should be used as tie-breakers instead. So a win always gives 2 points and when two people are tied, the one with the most KO's wins the group (like goal differences in football).

Injuries are also a problem, what happens if a fighter is unable to fight at an event?

All in all I think this is an interesting idea and I'm glad that promoters dare to try out new stuff.

[Dado]

Its good because it will hype it up and because it will be recognised as a Grand Prix qualifier.

But its bad because I have to pay three times to see it. :D

[( o Y o )]

It is great stuff for Oceania, K-1 and Dixon. I hope this means they'll send Japanese staff and fujiTV down for each event too

[Amron]

i think its very good for the fighters - more fights during the year, and everyone counts like its the last

very good move for this region

[( o Y o )]

from ax

Here are the 12 names in discussion at the moment
Peter Graham
Jason Suttie
Paul Slowinski
Ron Sefo
Chris Chrisopoulides
Pola Mataele
Peter Sampson
Ricardo Van De Boss
Daniel Tai
Sydney Asiata
Andrew Peck
Aussie TBC

The other thing you must all remember is that 4 fighters will fight in the Oceania WGP in March but another 4 will be chosen for the 2 reserve fights. Whilst 1 will proceed to the Final 16 the others have chances of fighting in other qualifiers if they perform well the options are so much wider for the Oceania fighters and this is also due to having your event at the start of the WGP Circuit year.

[Amron]

they might put up a few Revenge-Bouts each time!! Sounds great

[Razor Bump]

Does'nt sound like a bad idea at all. Peter Graham is over due and Slowinski is just vicious with elbows this will heat up the competitive drive over there for sure.

[CentralKickboxing.Org]

Does'nt sound like a bad idea at all. Peter Graham is over due and Slowinski is just vicious with elbows this will heat up the competitive drive over there for sure.

Elbows?

[Lord Gaul]

I guess the thing I don't like about it is its starting to mean less to win the Oceana. I think that the winner should get a bid to the elimination, Isn't that what happened to Hunt, Graham, and Sefo. It should at leat get them to the Last qulifier like last year. I think its cool that it at least plays a part but why is it becoming so complicated?

Note I maybe a little off about how the formentioned names made it to the Eliminations.

[Jules]

It sounds like at least NZ is getting Oceania back on the map, which is great for all of K-1

[Razor Bump]

Yeah Slowinski fights better with full Thai rules. He's also admitted this in a few interviews. His boxing is okay. He just one the heavyweight Thai tournament wich allowed elbows throughout the whole tournament.