Hi fellow fight fans, here's some great news for those who enjoy the stand-up game. A quick blurb from their the K-1 official site:

"FIGHT FOR JAPAN MAGES.presents "K-1 WORLD MAX 2011 -63kg Japan Tournament FINAL" (June 25, 2011) will be broadcasted live on the net in the whole world!"

Link is here for the full read: http://www.k-1.co.jp/en/news/2…..ax_01.html

I'll be watching! Enjoy!

-Law

To wet people's appetites, here's the K-1 MAX ~63kg 2010 Tournament Championship Final held on July 25, 2010: Tetsuya Yamato vs Yuta Kubo. It's an exciting match to say the least.

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Enjoy!

-Law

Hi Chanhyung Bae, in terms of K-1 rules, no elbows and very limited knees in the clinch. Let's just say that the knees rule changed once Buakaw broke on the scene back in 2004. If you go back and youtube search some Buakaw 2004 K-1 MAX championship fights, you'll see what I'm talking about. As such, K-1 fighters are excellent fighters, but the way the scoring system is set up, "punches in bunches" score points while kicks and knees aren't as heavily scored. In fact, if I recall correctly, you can't knee people in the face in K-1. Current K-1 Heavyweight Gran Prix Champion Alistair Overeem gets lots of warnings from the refs for doing that. As such, K-1 fighters that excel usually have great hands.

Whereas in a Muay Thai bout, even if kicks are getting blocked, they will score you points with judges if they land with authority. Remember, loads of fighters have had their forearms broken because they blocked those kicks that wouldn't have scored in K-1 rules.

Sweeps are allowed in K-1, if you watch at around 1:15-1:20 of the fight, Kubo catches a kick and sweeps Yamato. Issue is, sweeps don't exactly score points it just helps to demoralize your opponent and make you look good in front of the judges.

Please take what I say with a grain of salt, I am by no means an authority in terms of scoring systems and am overgeneralizing quite a bit. There are great kickers in K-1 and there are great "boxers" in Muay Thai.

All in all though, the 2010 ~63kg final was dramatic and entertaining. I hope you enjoyed it for what it was. : )

-Law

Hello, Law. Thanks again for the nice explanations. I didn't know about these scoring systems.

I totally agree with your idea that kick is very powerful. After my last kickboxing fight, I realized that thai kick is much more power than it looks. Because I never had a chance to take a "real" kick in my leg or body before this game. Taking powerful kick is aweful, even though block it with arm. That's why I'm spending so many time working on thai kicks nowadays.  However, my shin is not so strong yet, sometimes it makes me hesitate to throw heavy kicks, which means I should spend more time in kicking.

Anyway, thank you very much. Can't wait to see tomorrow's game.