sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,10488,1404903,00.html
Olympics: British losers will see funds slashed Why K-1 is the toughest, most exciting sport in the world K-1, a sport which combines the most skilful elements of all martial arts , is already the most popular spectactor event in Japan, says Paul Doyle .
Fair enough, the sun is handy, but from a strictly sporting point of view the best thing ever to come our way from Japan is K-1. It's a combat sp ort folks, and it's about to take over the planet. K-1 is a fighting format that combines the most skilful and effective ele ments of all martial arts even if the "K" in its name refers to just thr ee of them - karate, kick boxing and kung-fu. Almost more important than what it includes is what it removes. The brain child of Master Kazuyoshi Ishii, who staged the first ever Grand Prix in Tokyo just eight years ago, K-1 it is now the biggest spectator sport i n Japan because it is designed to be awesomely tough to practice but thr illingly easy to watch. With referees ruthlessly preventing any holding and judges awarding points not just for successful hits but also for agg ressive intent, bouts rarely turn into the sort of boring stalemates tha t boxing so often produces. What's more, the fact that matches only last five three-minute rounds mea ns fighters can go at it with gusto and we are spared the sight of great warriors either standing off in the early rounds to save energy for lat er or whacking each other stupid for fifteen minutes before stumbling th rough the final rounds like drunken oafs. Instead we get five rounds of high-tech, full-on battling with all six permitted weapons (both hands, feet and knees - head-butting and elbow strikes are forbidden). It's brutal and unrelenting but this is not street-fighting or some kind of glorified King of the Tinkers contest. This is a discipline, or rathe r a spectacular synergy of several disciplines. Fighters may march into the ring under monikers such as 'The Beast" and "The Red Scorpion" but t hey are not to be confused with Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Undertake r: this is not the WWE. They are driven by "budo", the martial arts ethic of honour and valour, and, contrary to st ereotypes, most of them can prove they're capable of living off their br ains too. For example, current British K-1 champion (and ten times world jujitsu champion) Gary "Smiler" Turner runs a successful chartered surv eying company, and current world champion, Remy Bojanski of Holland, use d to be a merchant banker. Having said that, when it comes to the presentation side of things, K-1 h appily takes inspiration from American wrestling. Firework displays and rabble-rousing MCs have become essential pre-bout features at most big e vents, which in Japan attract audiences, often as many women as men. Mas ter Ishii also has an eye for publicity stunts: not only did he sign up Mike Tyson, who will probably never actually compete, but he also unveil ed "The Tyson Twin," an uncannily convincing Tyson look-alike who claims to be the twin brother Iron Mike never knew he had. It's interesting to speculate how Tyson would do in K-1, or rather how he would have done when he was fit and fast. Most likely, he would have go ne the way of his "brother", whose upper body movement was excellent but whose inability to deliver or repel kicks meant he spent more time on h is back than a sleepy sun-bather. But then again, maybe not: around one- third of the competitors in the K-1 circuit started out as boxers but de veloped a wider range of skills through cross-training and, moreover, th e very purpose of K-1 is to accommodate diverse styles, from Frenchman J erome LeBanner's furious onslaughts of fists and feet to the incessant g rappling of traditional Mongolian wrestler Jadamba Narantungalag. "The Beast", or Bob Sapp to give him his real name, is, as his army of pu blicists are fond of saying, the biggest thing to hit Japan since Godzil la. At 205m tall and weighi ng in at 170kg, he is a man of immense power. But he is technically woef ul: a failed American Football player, when he lifts his leg he looks li ke a dog going for a slash rather than a martial artist delivering a kic k, and he throws such wide, looping punches that his attacks couldn't be more predictable if Nostradamus gave word of them 500 years ago. Yet he has twice beaten four-times world K1 champion and technician supreme Er nesto "Mr Perfect" Hoost. "The purists despise him," says Eurosport K1 commentator Will Vanders, hi mself a 3rd dan in Kyokushinkai, "but in Japan he's bigger than David Be ckham or any other celebrity you care to name. "The Japanese basically invented endurance and whatever you might say abo ut Sapp's lack of skills and poise, you can't deny he's got guts," he ad ds. "To be able to go into the ring and take the sort of punishment he g ets, I mean, you've got to admire his sheer chutzpah!" "And ultimately, he's great for the sport because fans love him. And that 's what I keep saying it's about: bums on seats." And K-1 is convincing more and more people to park their bums on seats. It has spread rapidly from Japan and regional qualifying tourname nts for the big Grand Prix final in Tokyo are held in 10 countries acros s five continents. There is also a newly-formed European Superleague, wh ich though Muay Thai-based, uses rules almost identical to K-1 and is ga ining both competitors and, thanks to Eurosport's weekly 'Fight Club' ma gazine, an ever-growing television audience.
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