K-1 Hong Kong - finally!

By the time you read this, I'll probably be basking on a beach in Waikiki with a Corona like in those commercials....  (ok, maybe not two major things wrong with that image).  But I've post-dated this entry so you'll get your Etchy fix...

It took me forever to finish!  but finally I have put up my K-1 Hong Kong pictures and Video!  You may recall that this event was actually held in HK over two months ago... but because I took so much video, it took me a long time to actually finish this! :-P

The event was held at the beginning of August at the Asia World Expo, the first K-1 event held in Hong Kong.  For those who don't know,  K-1 ( wikipedia) is probably the biggest kick boxing league in the world, based in Japan.  Its pretty famous,  personally I've always preferred PRIDE to K-1 (mixed martial arts vs stand-up kickboxing), but i didn't want to pass up a chance to see it either way. ;-)

The only fighters on the card I really wanted to see were the 'super fight' participants,  Choi Hong Man and Gary Goodridge... 

You may have seen Choi on some of those Japanese Variety Show Clips on Youtube, basically he is a 7'2", 360lb Korean guy who is marginally good at kickboxing ( wikipedia)...

Goodridge ( wikipedia) is a Canadian guy who used to fight in UFC and Pride (and was an Arm Wrestling Champion of some sort)... he is only 6'3" and 240lb though... so big arms or not, he was in trouble. :-P

Pat pre-ordered seats a few months in advance. We had seats up in the stands for the first half.  in the second half i managed to sneak into the VIP section.  Here's the compilation video that took so long to finish:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDV7O5L-xTQ What do you think?  It might be a bit confusing, but basically that guy Musashi got RACKED in the nads like 3 times throughout the course of the night... twice from the first guy and once more from the 2nd guy.  poor guy! :-P

Anyway check that event wikipedia for the details of each of the fights...

And here's some of my stills from the night:

Before the fights started... you can see the relative size difference between Goodridge and Choi... huge!

The Asia World Expo is a pretty nice venue for Kickboxing I'd say...  especially because I had my Casio EX-V7 at this time (before it decided to break!)  I really took good advantage of the 7x zoom and the 'past video' features...

Nice zoom! 

Randy Kim vs Wang Qiang

doh,  Randy got a pretty bad bloody nose on his way to defeat. :-(

Fujimoto vs Jian

Taiei Kin says 'I Vill Break You!'

As you probably could tell from the video, this was one of the best fights:

Aerts 'The Dutch Lumberjack' vs Pettas

Here's Musashi:

the expression says it all...

After the intermession, with a little help from my friends, I was able to snag an empty seat in the VIP section down front.  I was a lot closer, but the view was not quite as clear as the stands view because of the ropes....

Badr Hari vs Peter Graham, another really good fight.

Oh, the view is better from up here. :-P

Rather modestly dressed for ring girls though, don't you think?

One of the coolest things was seeing this guy in the corner of Peter Graham:

ボビーですよ！

What? you don't recognize Bobby Ologun?  In Japan this guy is probably the 2nd most famous black guy  you've never heard of ... he is (or was at least) on TV like every other day... 　( wikipedia)....

Finally I got what I was waiting for! He was huge!

(yes, I did put this photo on the wikipedia entry for him). :-P

Damn, poor Gary...

As you can see in the video,  it didn't take long before Choi collected his comedically small trophy...

Who's that guy w/ the super camera?

oh wow,  its Daniel Wu talking to Jaycee Chan AND Wu Jing...   

Actually this is the first time I had to see Wu Jing in like 7 years,  since back in our wushu days... 

ok.  thats it for now! later.