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K-1 Grand Prix K-1 is a combat sport that combines stand up techniques from Muay Thai, Karate, Savate, San shou, Kickboxing and traditional Boxing to determine the single best stand-up fighter in the world (the "1").
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08-03-2011, 01:27 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Bantamweight
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 848
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K-1 sold
Since I rarely come to the K-1 section, it didn't cross my mind to post this when I came across the article. But I noticed from the front page that the last post here was from weeks ago. And upon entering, I didn't see a thread about K-1 being sold. So this is slightly belated.
Quote:
July 28 2011
K-1, the largest and most prestigious kickboxing promotion in the world, is no longer owned by Fighting and Entertainment Group and has been sold to Japanese real estate firm Barbizon Co,. Ltd.
Promotional group FEG and president Sadaharu Tanikawa have operated K-1 since September 2003 but the promotion has fallen upon hard times recently due to the rapid decline in the the sport's popularity in Japan and the questionable entertainment-centric direction that Tanikawa has steered K-1.
The sale comes as no surprise as Tanikawa admitted back in January that FEG would "die" due to major financial issues. The sale to Barbizon does come as a surprise to many though as it was heavily rumored that a prominent Dutch promotional and management company was set to take the reins of K-1.
Full details from this historic deal after the break.
Barbizon Co,. Ltd now owns the following trademarks:
K-1
K-1 Grand Prix
K-1 Fighting Network
K-1 World GP
K-1 International Association
K-1 World Association
Federation Internationale de K-1 Association
K-1 Exercise
Dynamite!
K-1 Premium Dynamite!
Barbizon does not own K-1 Koshien, K-1 MAX or DREAM.
K-1 Koshien is a yearly nation-wide tournament for highschool students. The K-1 Koshien trademark remains the property of gambling conglomerate Fields.
K-1 MAX (standing for Middleweight Artistic eXtreme) includes the 70 kg and 63 kg weight divisions. It is unclear as to who owns the MAX trademark. MAX has been tied to broadcaster TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) in the past but FEG recently promoted a 63 kg MAX Japan tournament without TBS and have also announced plans for a 70 kg MAX tournament, again most likely without TBS.
DREAM, FEG's MMA promotion, remains under the control of FEG and Real Entertainment.
It is not yet clear what role current K-1 staff will play in the running of future operations. Given the astounding level of public criticism that FEG President Sadaharu Tanikawa has received recently, it seems unlikely that he will be involved with the running of K-1 going forward. K-1 creator Kazuyoshi Ishii is likely to be part of the new K-1 however as he has been hinting at this transfer for some time.
Ishii recently revealed that the new K-1 will hold a Heavyweight World GP every two years rather than the annual tournament that has been running since 1993. There will also be more of a focus on making this new K-1 appeal to a global audience. Until now, Japan has hosted every K-1 World GP Final.
Barbizon Co,.Ltd was formed in 1967, currently employs 35 employees and has 484,000,000 Japanese yen (approximately 6.2 million dollars) in capital. The company specializes in real estate and owns a number of hotels and apartment complexes in Southeast Asia and Japan.
It appears that the takeover actually took place approximately one month ago however the deal was not made public until Thursday afternoon. A press conference to announce details of the takeover has not yet been scheduled, and FEG officials have not yet commented on the sale.
K-1 was formed in 1992 by karate practitioner and Seidokan Karate creator Kazuyoshi Ishii. Since 1993, the promotion has staged the sport's most prestigious annual kickboxing tournament, the K-1 World GP.
In December 2002, Ishii was arrested for tax evasion and so he passed the promotion over to former pro wrestling journalist Sadaharu Tanikawa. FEG was formed in September of 2003 in an attempt to distance the K-1 brand from the shamed Ishii. Tanikawa took a more pro wrestling and entertainment-based approach to the promotion. The Japanese fight sport industry went through a boom in popularity peaking on Dec. 31, 2003, but Tanikawa's new angle has not been proven popular with fans or fighters as K-1 has been on the decline ever since.
A seemingly endless list of fighters and managers have spoken out against FEG and Tanikawa in recent times due to unpaid fight purses and the objections to the direction that Tanikawa has chosen to take K-1.
Correction: The article originally stated that Kazuyoshi Ishii was jailed in December 2002. Ishii was in fact arrested in December 2002. Ishii actually went to jail on June 11, 2007 after exhausting appeals on charges of corporate tax evasion and destruction of evidence relating to the case.
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Source. All emphasis mine.
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08-04-2011, 01:45 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Flyweight
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Montreal, QC
Posts: 458
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Quote:
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Ishii recently revealed that the new K-1 will hold a Heavyweight World GP every two years rather than the annual tournament that has been running since 1993.
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Who can explain the logic behind this. This is one of the best events every year and now they want to take a break of 24 months after each tournament?
Other than that looks good to me, get some event around the world going will be great for the sport. Doesn't sound like $6.2M in capital is very much... |
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08-05-2011, 12:46 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Bantamweight
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Canada
Posts: 765
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Quote:
Originally Posted by King JLB
Who can explain the logic behind this. This is one of the best events every year and now they want to take a break of 24 months after each tournament?
Other than that looks good to me, get some event around the world going will be great for the sport. Doesn't sound like $6.2M in capital is very much...
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Agreed, there's some interesting things going on, I'm liking a lot of it to turn the organization around.
Why oh why are they doing the HW GP every 2 years now  
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08-19-2011, 06:25 PM
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#4 (permalink)
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The Title Guy
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Orange, California
Posts: 9,843
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I think Real Entertainment will probably be taking the reigns of Dream at some point. If FEG is selling all those trademarks then that either means they are trying to recover by getting money or they are calling it quits and are going to sell the other promotions as well. This means the end of an era.
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09-08-2011, 10:05 AM
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#5 (permalink)
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MMA Fanatic
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 3
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K-1 is dead. They still owe money to fighters. Why fight for an organisation that does not pay? Once the so-called new owners pay all of the unpaid contracts then perhaps I will follow. Until then it will be "It's Showtime" for standup for me.
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09-08-2011, 04:39 PM
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#6 (permalink)
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The Title Guy
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Orange, California
Posts: 9,843
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It's Dream that doesn't pay their fighters. They are still owned by Fighting and Entertainment group. Which is probably why they'll go down.
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09-09-2011, 10:27 AM
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#7 (permalink)
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MMA Fanatic
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 3
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To may knowledge K-1 still owes monies to some fighters. Including Souwer, Ludwig, Overeem etc. FEG suck pure and simple they ruined the best standup organisation on the planet. Shame on them for not honoring contracts. For a Japanese group you would think "Honor" would mean something.
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K-1 sold
