On April 30, 1993 at the Yoyogi gymnasium in Tokyo, the revolution took place, creating a panic in the world of fighting sports. This was the birth of the K-1 Grand Prix. First of all, why was K-1 born and why did it become popular?

This year is the 10^th anniversary, and so we look back at the starting point. When we look back at the situation in fighting sports 10 years ago, it was the starting point of a time for change.

In Japanese fighting sports, only professional wrestling and boxing had become independent as professional sports. Of these, boxing was recognized as a world wide sport, and new trends began to appear in Japan’s professional wrestling. This was the appearance of the UWF (Universal Wrestling Federation).

The UWF was a body of the movement to change professional wrestling into a total fighting sport. Who is the strongest in fighting sports? Which fighting sport is the strongest? To pursue a permanent dream like that, we have to make professional wrestling a sport whose roles are perfect. Under the banner of such ideals, the UWF was established by Satoru Sayama and Akira Maeda, and young people gave a resounding endorsement to this entity. It is no exaggeration to say that thanks to the UWF, the world of fighting sports became widely known around the world. Against this historic backdrop, not only professional wrestling, but a wide range of fighting sports such as sambo or kickboxing attracted public attention. Among those, a karate group named Seido Kaikan tossed its hat into the ring as a league of amateur fighting sports.

Kazuyoshi Ishii was the master of Seido Kaikan. His ideas went beyond those of traditional karate instructors. The Seido Kaikan was established by Mr. Ishii, who originally learned Kyokushin Karate. For this reason the genes of the world’s strongest karate, the idea of Masutatsu Oyama who established Kyokushin Karate, have been inherited by Ishii. Ishii himself had the idea that the worlds strongest karate could becomes a professional sport even and would succeed as a business. No karate masters have ever come up with an idea like that before.

During the time when the UWF gained enormous popularity among the young, Mr. Ishii made his karate contests professional nationwide like the UWF. Cross fighting matches were held in which Masaaki Satake and Nubuaki Kakuda who belonged to Seido Kaikan entered the ring against professional fighters from kickboxing or “RINGS.” When the time was ripe, the K-1 Grand Prix was held to determine who was the strongest in all fighting sports.

At that time, there were many world champions only in standing fighting sports. The K of K-1 is taken from the initials of these standing fighting sports, such as karate, kickboxing, kung-fu, Kyokushin, and Kempo. The concept of K-1 was to hold a one-night tournament bringing together all the world champions to determine who was truly the strongest. Mr. Ishii also arranged tie-ups with a TV station to firmly establish the event as a business. In this way, the 10000 tickets for the first K-1 Grand Prix sold out within about 2 hours, and the TV ratings were very high even late at night. Consecutive knockouts with a single blow from heavy weight fighters created a big sensation. For this reason, the K of K-1 is sometimes mistakenly thought to be the K of knockouts.

The aggressive fighting terrified fans who were normally accustomed to watching professional wrestling or boxing. In this way, K-1 shocked the world of fighting sports to become widely rapidly known world wide as an international sport from Japan.

In particular, the concept attracts many fans. They want to watch the concept of the strongest. For this reason, K-1 should not be the place in which one champion in one genre, kickboxing, is decided. It is the place in which cross fighting matches are held between karate fighters and kick boxers or between boxers and Tae Kwoon Do fighters under K-1 rules. Unlimited matches like this have caught on.

When unlimited cross fighting matches are held, unfair conditions are inevitable. For example, a kick boxer has a greater advantage over a karate fighter under K-1 rules, as they are similar to kickboxing. And K-1 doesn’t have weight divisions, so heavier fighters have more advantage over lighter fighter(s). However, it is this unfairness that has enhanced the popularity of K-1. A typical example is Andy Hug. He was small in stature for a K-1 fighter and unaccustomed to K-1 rules because of his karate career. However, fans tend to side with the weaker in unbalanced matches. Actually, Andy made great efforts to purse revenge even if strong opponents like Peter Aerts, Ernesto Hoost, or Mike Bernardo knocked him out many times.

The word, revenge become a fashionable new word because of K-1. It is because the drama in which a fighter recovers again and again in spite of so many defeats, make K-1 so attractive. In other words, K-1 is an epoch-making sport genre directing a spotlight on the weak as well because of the unfair conditions of cross fight matches. This is why a champion of the K-1 Grand Prix has not played host to the most popular world. For this reason, Mr. Ishii still provides imbalanced matches between Jerome Le Banner and Gary Goodridge or Ernesto Hoost and Bob Sapp instead of creating a match between two fighters on the same level. This is the reason why the match making overwhelmingly appeals to fans rather than K-1 fighters fighting each other. This concept of K-1 is the method which is never seen in other fighting sports such as boxing. During the early days of K-1, there were strong fighters such as Peter Aerts and Ernesto Hoost, and weaker fighters such as Andy Hug and Masaaki Satake, who made K-1 more dramatic. The emergence of boxer-like fighters such as Mike Bernardo and Jerome Le Banner into the situation made K-1 matches even more diverse. Andy’s championship in 96 was the curtain fall of the K-1 pioneer days. The attractive K-1 sport genre developed into the social phenomenon with the help of Mr. Ishii’s business prowess.

In 1996 K-1 was first broadcast at prime time by the Fuji Television Network, Inc. This convention highlighted the match between Masaaki Satake and Andy Hug, and was a great success with TV viewer ratings of over 20 percent. In 1997, the K-1 convention made its way to the three big domes of Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. The main attraction of the switch to dome stadiums was to accosiate with Kyokushin Kainkan. This is when Francisco Filho, who later become Kyokushin world champion entered the stage. In 1998 K-1 was taken to Las Vegas in the U.S., the home of boxing and entertainment. It’s full-scale overseas presence become clear along with K-1 fight night in Switzerland since 1996. From around that time, K-1 fighters frequently appeared on TV shows or commercials, so the K-1 business become huge. This is symbolized by Nippon Television broadcasting the K-1 Japan series.

 With the help of Mr. Ishii’s planning abilities already mentioned, K-1 has developed into a huge event unprecedented in fighting sports with TV tie-ups.

 During the progressive era from 1997 to 2000, it was a time for considering how to improve K-1 events. As the number and quality of fighters increased, the K-1 Grand Prix, originally held with just 8 fighters, has developed into a high-level convention with tough elimination rounds starting with 300 fighters.

However, the biggest tragedy for K-1 occurred in 2000 when Andy Hug, who had gained enormous popularity as a symbol of K-1, suddenly passed away. His death shocked everyone concerned with K-1. Around that time, K-1 slowly began to crumble, with Masaaki Satake and Sam Greco passing their peaks, Filho returning to the world convention of Kyokushin, and Jerome making a career switch to boxing for a time. TV ratings and the spectator figures did not decline, but K-1 may actually have been undergoing a crisis. Mr. Ishii therefore took surprisingly large steps to make K-1 more aggressive.

 It was the challenge that K-1 fighters took on Mixed Martial Arts. In August 2001 a match was staged in the K-1 ring between Kazuyuki Fujita the leader of the Team Inoki, and Mirko Cro cop. After Mirko won in the decisive match, cross fighting matches by K-1 fighters took off in a big way. The Inoki Bom-Baye held by the K-1 versus Team Inoki achieved all-time high viewer ratings of 15 percent by TBS in competition against NHK’s Red and White singing contest. Moreover, using the concept of all-out battles between K-1 and PRIDE, large scale interchange was maintained, in which PRIDE fighters entered the K-1 ring under the K-1 rules, and K-1 fighters entered the PRIDE ring their rules. The ultimate event was Dynamite! which attracted 90000 spectators at the Nation Stadium in August this year.

Mr. Ishii is no longer a mere K-1 producer, and he has become the fighting producer as an unchallenged leader in the business. Thanks to the fighting, legendary fighters have appeared such as Mirko Cro cop and Bob Sapp. And with the world wide elimination convention also, great rookies such as Mark Hunt and Alexey Ignashov are making progress.

Constant but courageous reform by Mr. Ishii can wipe out the loss of even Andy. Now is probably the best time for K-1 in its history. This is because K-1 has adopted fighting that formed its original starting point, and overcome the obstacles to other fighting sports without the fear of losing. The 10-year history is a history of fighting. The posture is more likely to continue in the future as well.