Thoughts on Amsterdam GP

[Lord Gaul]

I posted this in the pbp, but here it goes again

My thought are that the event was OK, but by far teh least of the K-1 shows this year. I am not that upset with the early stoppages, but they did make what would have been HL real KO's into forgetable KO's.

Slowiski looked great and deserved to win. I was disapointed in Mag, because he didn't look like he came to win. His only life being the return fire after the down to BB.

Saw looked great and they are bringing him up well.

Hiroya looked awesome and he will be a future Max WGP champ if he keeps it up.

I wished they aired the Saki fight.

SS looks unbeatable, but I hope he gets beat.

Aerts should have fought Remy.

Also I thought that Hawaii was better then this event even the though production for this one was better.

[Blindo]

Slowinski is great
Mo lookes tired
Schilt was good as always
Maga is too small for guys like Bregy
Wallis didn't impress me
Peter is the true hero
Bob, who the fuck is Bob ;)
Ruslan wake up!!

[Arie-Kanarie]

My highlights of the night was the entrance song of Brecht Wallis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNmh89nORE and the crowd booing Sapp.

[sparkles]

From the semi's on the fights were great. The problems with guys like Magomedov and Samedov is they lack size and thus power, so they will seldom win by KO vs good opposition. Wallis is a diesel and again I think the matchmaking wasn't really good with Wallis and Bregy as quarter and Samedov and Magomedov in the tournament. Eventually I think Bregy was dead tired. He tried to finish Walis in the first but he had to fight for 3 rounds.
Karaev got caught AGAIN by a big punch. Despite the Sefo lessons, he still makes the dame mistakes. Terrible KO again, that can't be good.
Sapp is done. Years probably steroid abuse have taken their toll. He looked very dense as well.
Mo couldn't do much because Semmy didn't gave him a chance to counter because he's too dynamic. He came close once with a huge left, but that was it.

[Jofeljoh!]

Aerts vs Sapp is on Dutch tv now... So I hope that I hear what Aerts says after the fight and hopefully the post-fight interview

[Jofeljoh!]

'I only had one choice, and that was fighting Bob Sapp. Next year I want a REAL opponent, and then ... (something I couldn't hear quite well, but something like 'I'm gonna beat his ass').

[Arie-Kanarie]

@jofel, in dutch he said: "Dan sla ik hem de tyfus"

Sapp was also interviewed: he said; I apologize, he hit me in the lungs, but I will be back. Then he got out as soon as he could.

[Jofeljoh!]

Post fight interview;

Peter Aerts just said that the knee was a clean hit on his liver, but 'a real guy would stand up again and fight on. Next year I want a REAL opponent, because this is just sad. A fight like this should go on for 2 or 3 rounds ending with me knocking him out. Again, I hit him good on the liver but this fight was too short and he did little effort to continue'.

Sapp afterwards apologized for his performance; he could understand that the people were mad and didn't want to look like going out on a prowrestling match. He just caught him on his lung (!) so he couldn;t catch his breath.

And some more 'the beast will be back' bullshit while getting away to the dressing room as fast as he could.

[Kayo]

I don't even care about Sapp... one way or the other. I'm just waiting to see him get KO'd cold, it'd be nice to see him unconscious before he leaves forever.

My main point of focus now is Ruslan... this guy has taken like three very hard KO losses, Sefo (well Sefo KO'd him twice but he was out bad the second time), Hari and now Manhoef. He's good and I'd like to see more of him but he really needs to work on his defense b/c he gets caught clean too often and I don't want to see him seriously injured b/c he's pretty good.

I'm still checking it out right now, can't believe I missed this live. Shouldn't have stayed up until 4 am smoking.

Also, LOL at Amada's entrance music... "Pretty fly for a white guy"

XD

[Mofu]

The whole show was rather dissapointing and that was casued by bad luck and most important bad matchmaking!

Winners of preliminaries limited till 92 kg can't stand a chance againt Bregy.

Amada should quit right away. I told everybody before the fight he would lose on lowkicks, beacuse he lost already 20 times on lowkicks. If you can't understand that you should improve from such losses, I think you should quit rightaway.

[Dado]

LOL when the announcer introduced Sapp "Hes198cm160kgwhatver..... and give it up FOR PETER AERTS!!!"

I went absolutely crazy when Slowinski won, I have never been that excited after a fight, even live ones. I was completely disheartened to see one of my favourite fighters (Magomed) lose to Bregy. But then Slowinski changed all of that and beat Bregy with confidence and impressive ability. What an inspiration.

[El Presidente]

What was the official time on Aerts' stoppage?

[Dado]

'26 ?

[Shinbone]

Well, what can I say? I haven't seen all fights but I give my opinion.

I think the line-up was not great and the wrong people fought each other. Let me explain it.

If an organisation puts two heavy and big fighters against each other, those fights are usually boring. Wallis vs Bregy was just plain wrong. Same as you put Orlov vs Nortje together, those fights does not appeal to anyone. Even in Japan I can't imagine they like those fights. When will K-1 learn that style's make matches?
Then if you put small fighters in it, the chance that the smaller fighter will put the giants in danger is fairly small. Unless the smaller fighter is a KO guy like Arrab. So Samedov, Magomedov and Neladva do not coop good with giants like Bregy.

Then the super fights were very disapointing, but it takes two to tango.

And Karaev, please go to a boxing school in the USA or Germany for 6 months and learn to defend punches. If such KO's continue it will dramtically shorten his carreer.

Furthermore I'd like to see doping checks, because Bregy and Manhoef and of course Sapp don't look natural at all. But that has nothing to do with the tournament.

I may bewrong because I haven't seen all fights yet.

[K1power]

Well, this is how I (and some friends who went with me) experienced the event;

The crowd: I hate to say it, but the crowd sucked even more ass than last year. I think it's safe to say that 90% of the crowd consisted of drunk/stoned, know-nothing, disrespectful pieces of crap. In my opinion, if a fight sucks ass, booing to some degree is understandable/acceptable. Those idiots made it a sport though to boo at the top of their lungs when nothing happened for five seconds. The absolute climax of disrespect though was when everybody boo'd Bregy after he had beaten Mag. and when EVEN VIP MEMBERS started to throw food, drinks and other objects in the ring after the Sapp/Aerts fight. The fight was totally unsatisfying to say the least, but you can't do shit like that throwing shit in the ring! At that point I would have liked to see every single one of them executed, lol.

The production values: Except for the DJ and Ronald Wüstenberg who always looks like a 50 year old pimp on shrooms and whose voice and mistakes just made us laugh out loud at times everything looked good and maybe even a bit better than last year: The setup looked less chaotic than last year and security looked as if they actually knew what they were doing this time 'round, lol.

The fights: Although some fights unfortunately were ended by injuries (Pajonsuk vs el Idrissi, Direkci vs Mes) and the two main events (Aerts' and Sems fights) were a big letdown the tournament was solid with Bregy vs Magomedov and Bregy vs Slowinski easily being the best fights of the tournament. Everybody went nuts when Magomedov and Bregy slugged it out after a slow start and I don't really get LG's dissappointment in Mag. as he clearly gave it his all and showed a lot of heart against Bregy. Hiroya vs Tan was also very entertaining to the point that it's crazy if you realise that Hiroya is only 15 years old! I mean Tan did "okay", but it was a combination of Hiroya's technique, creativity and speed that really were something else. He will be a big name in the future! Sawayashiki also impressed me against Vermont and he showed that he might be Japan's best hope for an upcoming talented HW. As for Karaev.... man what a dissappointment! If your chin is that bad, keep your fucking hands up! If his style doesn't change DRASTICALLY his carreer won't last long. Melvin was explosive and did what he had to do, but I don't like his cockiness and hyperactive "look at me, I'm such a badass" attitude. I hope K-1 matches him up with someone like Mo that knocks his ass out cold. Sapp vs Aerts was... well... way too short, lol. I don't question that Sapp was hurt enough to go down, but I think that he could have gotten up if he tried so to me he definitely lacked heart. Weak and short fight by Sapp, short but strong performance by Aerts who just finished Sapp off quicker than anyone ever has! Slowinski vs Bregy was good, mainly because the more entertaining fighter took it. BTW that was the strangest but also very cool first knockdown Slowinski scored on Bregy, lol. Hoost definitely worked on Slowinski's killer instinct and I see him go very far this year if he keeps up!
Schilt vs Mo was a boring fight, definitely not worthy of a titlefight, but Sem did what he have to do to ensure a win while Mo just should have go all out because he had nothing to lose...

After the event a lot of fighters were outside the arena, some took time to take pictures with fans and chat a bit, while some just fled out there, lol. I wasn't in the mood to bother the fighters and get in line to take a picture. I did get a photo with Hoost though, but since it was taken with a Cellphone the quality is pretty bad + I can hardly be seen on the photo due to everybody jumping in front of me when it was taken, lol. I'll get my chance next year though...:)



All in all I had a very good time attending the event. You gotta try to turn over that switch that makes you forget about the crowd and just focus on and enjoy the fights themselves. Will I be there next year? Pretty sure that I will! I won't let my annual chance to attend a K-1 show go by because the Amsterdam crowd sucks, because the show in itself was definitely worth it to me.

[sparkles]

The crowd was terrible indeed. No respect at all. Especially if you are a foreign fighter, they already start booing you in advance for no reason.
I like the laser shows, but some things just remind me of a bad taste. The guy with the guitar (?) is a good example of it ... the motorcycles hanging in the arena ( Wtf were they doing there? ... a sponsor is all what I can think of ).
Sapp and Mo have the excuse of a short preparation. I heard Mo already complain in advance ... I don't think he was in good shape, not that I think it would have mattered. Schilt is the wrong fight for Mo, who is a counterpuncher . Sapp was even worse, just looks at his body, so dense. He's no fighter, doesn't know how to deal with pain.
The musles of Manhoef and Breggy are a good question, they also happen to train at the same gym.

[Shinbone]

The crowd is THE reason I did not go there this year.

[Lawrence Tierney]

I can't believe how bad the crowd was. They were booing half the fights. They sure seemed to hate Bregy.
I think Schilt might have broken one of Mo's ribs early on. After the fight round, Mo was clearly grimacing in pain every time he took a kick on his right side.
I agree that Magomedov belongs in the 100 kg weight class.