Category — Moo-ee tie

Here’s a quick hit, er, kick: Dutch kickboxing giant Badr Hari soccer kicks his downed opponent, Hedsy Gerges, at the It’s Showtime event on the weekend. Hari has since apologized and has announced he’ll be taking a break from fighting for a while. Might I suggest he roll a fat one and chill the fuck out?

It ain’t New Year’s Eve without a crazy Japanese super-card. Thursday’s Dynamite!! 2009: DREAM vs. WVR (note the twin exclamation points!) promises eighteen K-1 and MMA bouts with fighters from DREAM and World Victory Road’s Sengoku series.

I’m not sure what the hell Gegard Mousasi is thinking taking on Gary Goodridge in the night’s co-headliner. Not that the Dutch fighter should have much trouble with a past-his-prime GG, I’d just rather he focus on being Strikeforce light heavyweight champ. Likewise, I’d rather Alistair Overeem get back to defending his Strikeforce heavyweight title instead of fighting Kazuyuki Fujita.

The other headliner is a K-1 match-up between Andy Souwer and Masato, which is supposed to be Masato’s career swansong. Other notables include Shinya Aoki vs. Mizuto Hirota, Yosuke Nishijima vs. Ray Sefo, Melvin Manhoef vs. Kazuo Misaki, Masanori Kanehara vs. Norofumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Akihiro Gono vs. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai and DREAM’s Super Hulk open-weight tournament finale between Ikuhisa Minowa and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou.

A day late and a dollar short but for what it’s worth, here’s the results from yesterday’s 2009 K-1 MAX tournament final from Yokohama, Japan.

Tourney favourite Giorgio Petrosyan lived up to the hype with a decision win over two-time K-1 MAX champion Andy Souwer to win the title. He will next face Masato at the Dynamite! New Year’s Eve card. Petrosyan made quick work of Yuya Yamamoto in the first semi-final with a decisive second-round KO. In the second semi-final bout, two-time K-1 MAX champions Souwer and Buakaw Por Pramuk battled to a three-round draw, with Souwer squeaking out a split decision in the extra rounds.

The tournament reserve bout pitted the 2006 and 2007 K-1 MAX Japan champion, Yoshihiro Sato, against the 2008 champion, Yasuhiro Kido, with Sato walking away with the KO win in the second round.

The apple doesn’t fall far from Melvin Manhoef’s tree. Check out these videos of the K-1 kickboxing champ’s five-year-old son, Million Manhoef. Crazy.

The Sherdog story on Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic was passed along to me by Joel Gerson over at Revolution MMA in Toronto. Turns out that former K-1 champ Michael McDonald will be stopping by RevMMA on Saturday to teach some Muay Thai classes. McDonald scored a first-round TKO over Cro Cop at the 2001 K-1 World Grand Prix.

The 2009 K-1 World GP Final 16 takes place tomorrow in Seoul, South Korea. Among the big kickers and heavy hitters to watch for are Remy Bonjasky, Semmy Schilt, Melvin Manhoef and Alistair Overeem, who has written a blog post here and done an interview (below) explaining (sort of) why he’s kickboxing and not defending his Strikeforce heavyweight belt and how he’s looking forward to fighting Fedor Emelianenko.

Fighters Only is reporting that ace Muay Thai instructor Mark DellaGrotte and his top student, UFC lightweight and Joe Rogan wannabe Kenny Florian, have parted ways.

“There are no hard feelings. Me and Kenny have been good friends for a long, long time. We did good thing together. I think this is a good decision for both of us,” says the Boston-based Sityodtong head coach. “It wasn’t a bad break or anything like that, it was just a mutual decision we made in order for us both to move forward. It was necessary for Kenny to move forward with his career and me to move forward as a coach.”

There has been a “constant power struggle” between DellaGrotte and Florian’s brother, Keith, who is also his head coach, for some time, DellaGrotte explained. “We worked well together at first but over the last few camps and fights we put together, there were differences and I am just the type of guy that if I can’t steer the ship, if I can’t be the captain, I would prefer not to be onboard.”

Dellagrotte says he likes to be 100 percent in control of his fighters’ camps. “I felt over the last couple of fights, I have not been able to be me or say what I wanted to say because I have not been in the position of head coach.  Going into the BJ Penn fight, I really didn’t feel like I had all that much control over the camp. Over the last couple of fights in fact, since Kenny made it public that Keith was the head coach.”

As Georges St. Pierre’s Muay Thai coach, Kru Phil Nurse has kind of slipped under the radar a little bit. GSP has become better known for his wrestling than his striking of late and when his stand-up is discussed his kyokushin karate background is usually mentioned before his Thai boxing. In fact, most of the attention Nurse has received is a result of the BJ Penn “greasegate” incident. Which is too bad considering Nurse, a former British and European Muay Thai champion and boxer, is in the same league as Mark DellaGrotte, Kenny Florian’s MT instructor.

All this by way of introducing this interview with Nurse, which is a really good piece despite Fox Sports‘ Mike Straka’s best efforts to be a bad interviewer. I had no idea Nurse was 46. He doesn’t look more than 36 or 37. Anyway, this is definitely worth checking out to hear him talk about how he trains GSP and Rashad Evans, how he works with GSP’s other coaches, including Greg Jackson, his thoughts on the Thiago Alves and BJ Penn fights, etc.