I apologize for the delay between updates, the internet went down at the Sports Hall and the rest of Lignano was a ghost town (closed for the season) so it was hard to get info back home.

To start off I want to describe the scoring system they used here.  If anyone watched any boxing during the 2008 olympic games in Beijing, it’s very similar (makes sense too because WAKO is trying real hard to make kickboxing an olympic sport).  Basically each judge has clicker type device (looks like a computer mouse with one red button and one blue button).  Everytime a clean, effective shot is landed, the judge clicks the color for that fighter.

Two things make this system very interesting:

1. It’s an accumulative scoring system so the judge is scoring the shots landed for the entire fight, not each individual round (you can lose the first 2 rounds, but come back in the 3rd to win the fight if you outscore your opponent)
2. It’s an open scoring system.  There are 2 giant tv screens in the corners of the rings (pointed so the fighters and the judges/ref can not see the screen, but the cornermen and the fans can).  Each screen shows the running score that each judge has at the moment.  You know exactly who is wining each fight and by how much.  This gets really exciting during close fights.  You also see which judges like us, and which dont.

Ok back to the updates:

On Friday we were expecting to have 5 fighters in the ring, but for some reason when the fight order came out, they stopped the day with Simon’s weight class meaning Adam and Mike were pushed back to fighting on Saturday.  This wasn’t a big deal for Mike as he is a heavyweight and doesn’t have a weight limit, but it sucked for Adam because he had to make weight each day of the tournament and to cut weight on Friday, but not fight really sucks.

FRIDAY FIGHTS

Jim Klauba took the ring first fighting against a tough fighter from Turkey.  Jim looked good in the ring, but his opponnent was an akward and dirty fighter (holding and hitting, catching kicks and punching, etc).  I think it took Jim a little off his game and got him looking too much for that one big shot to end the fight.  Jim bounced off the ropes in the 2nd round and ate a big kick that ended the fight.

Nathan Key’s second fight was against a phenomenal fighter from Norway (I believe he is the current European Champion).  Nathan started off the fight looking sharp and landing great kicks.  He moved well and had the lead after the first two rounds, but ran out of gas in the 3rd round and the Norweigan fighter began to outscore him.  Had they fought with a 10-9 must system, Nathan would have won the fight, but the accumulative system put him behind in the end.

Simon Buttener fought a Ukranian in his next fight.  The Ukranian fighter was obviously intimidated by Simon’s :12 second KO in his previous fight because he did not want to exchange with Simon.  Instead he fought a very smart/safe fight, moving constantly and using some very effective foot sweeps to avoid Simon’s power.  Simon caught him a few times, but the ref was quick to jump in and stop the bout because of headgear malfunctions with the Ukranian so Simon was unable to put any real combos together.

SATURDAY FIGHTS

Adam started the day off fighting against a fighter from Slovenia.  We had seen the fighter in his first bout and thought Adam had good chances against him.  Unfortunately Adam was exhausted after cutting weight on Tues, Fri, and Saturday.  He hadn’t eaten very much the entire week while trying to keep his weight low and he wasnt well hydrated either.   Adam started the fight off well landing great kicks and keeping the Slovenian flustered with his movement.  Adam won the first and second rounds on points, but he too lost gas in the 3rd round and the Slovenian came back on all cylinders to win the fight.  Another loss due to the accumulative scoring system.

Mike Dean faced off against a huge French fighter next.  Mike was the last fighter from the U.S. still alive in the tournament and our last hope for a medal.  You could see how much he wanted to win this fight for the team and for the USA.  He gave his all in this fight and didn’t stop after taking two huge shots (one to the head and one to the body) both giving him 8-counts.  Mike pushed hard, but the much taller Frenchman just controlled the distance better in the fight and kept away from Mike’s power to get the unanimous decision win.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It was a tough tournament for the U.S. team, but we did get 2 big wins in the tournament and several of the fights that we lost would have been won if using a 10-9 scoring system.  We also had much harder draws in the tournament than previously thought: Every fighter a U.S. Team member lost to ended up moving on to medal in the tournament (3 or 4 of them fought for the gold).

We definitely have things to work on, but we’re confident we belong here and you can expect an even better showing two years from now at the next World Championships.