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K-1 ANNOUNCES FIGHTERS FOR THE K-1 RISING U.S. GRAND PRIX CHAMPIONSHIP

Posted on July 25 2012

Courtesy of totalmuaythai.com

K-1 ANNOUNCES FIGHTERS For Los Ange­les Show

HEAVYWEIGHTS: MIGHTY MO, RICK ROUFUS, SETH PETRUZELLI, DEWEY COOPER, RANDY BLAKE, XAVIER VIGNEY AND TONY LOPEZ

MAX: MICHAEL MANANQUIL, KIT COPE, CHAZ MULKEY, SCOTT LEFLER, BRYCE KRAUSE, BEN YELLE, JOEY PAGLIUSO, AND JUSTIN GRESKIEWICZ

  FIGHTERS COMPETE FOR TOTAL OF $2 MILLION IN PRIZE MONEY
AND K-1 CHAMPIONSHIP BELTS
 
LIVE FROM THE LA SPORTS ARENA — SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2012
 
Tick­ets on Sale Fri­day, July 27 at 10:00 a.m. PT through Ticketmaster.com
 
K-1 announces fight­ers for the sec­ond event in its K-1 Ris­ing World Grand Prix series and announced to fights fans across the United States that K-1 is bring­ing its world class fight­ing expe­ri­ence back to the Amer­i­can stage. “K-1 Ris­ing” will head west to the City of Angels and hold its U.S. Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships at the LA Sports Arena on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 8, 2012.
 
America’s best heavy­weights includ­ing Mighty Mo (32–16), Rick Rou­fus, (63–9-1), Seth Petruzelli (22–16), Dewey Cooper (49–14-2), Randy Blake (22–0), Xavier Vigney (6–1), and Tony Lopez (31–9) and one more yet to be announced will com­pete on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 8 for a chance to rep­re­sent the United States in the K-1 Ris­ing World Grand Prix Final 16 in Tokyo, Japan.
 
The U.S. Grand Prix fight­ers will be com­pet­ing for a total of $2 Mil­lion prize and the cov­eted K-1 cham­pi­onship belt.
“We are excited to reveal this lineup of Amer­i­can heavy­weight and MAX fight­ers and are thrilled to bring the U.S. Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships to the LA Sports Arena on Sep­tem­ber 8,” said Doug Kaplan, CEO, K-1. “K-1 is back, and we can’t wait to bring the explo­sive, fast-paced, fight­ing action of K-1 to Los Angeles.”
 
Tick­ets for the K-1 Ris­ing U.S. World Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 8 live from the LA Sports Arena will go on sale this Fri­day, July 27 at 10:00 a.m. PT.
 
Tick­ets are avail­able for pur­chase through www.ticketmaster.com, or by call­ing Tick­et­mas­ter at 1–866-448‑7849. Tick­ets are also avail­able at the LA Sports Arena Box Office located at 3939 S. Figueroa Street in Los Ange­les or by call­ing (213) 748‑6131.
 
K-1 knock­out artist “Mighty Mo” Siliga (6’1″/280 lbs.) made his debut in the K-1 orga­ni­za­tion in 2004. He is a two-time K-1 cham­pion, hav­ing won the 2007 K-1 World Grand Prix in Hawaii and the 2004 K-1 World Grand Prix in Las Vegas.  Over the past eight years, he has beaten the best of the best includ­ing Remy Bon­jasky, Gary Goodridge, Carter Williams, Choi Hong-man and Scott Lighty. In the most recent K-1 series, Mighty Mo fought all the way through to the World Grand Prix Final 8 (2010).
 
Rick “The Jet” Rou­fus (5’11″/215 lbs.) is one of the most famous kick­box­ers in his­tory. He is a six-time world cham­pion in the sport, and claimed the pres­ti­gious title of K-1 US Grand Prix Cham­pion in 1998. The fol­low­ing year he went on to win the IKF Heavy­weight World Cham­pi­onship. In 2002 and 2003, Rou­fus was a run­ner up in the K-1 World Grand Prix. Rou­fus is the for­mer WBC Con­ti­nen­tal America’s Cham­pion and has a pro box­ing record of  14–5-1. The name “The Jet” is syn­ony­mous with kick­box­ing in the United States, and fans of the sport need no intro­duc­tion to the liv­ing leg­end that has fought and beaten just about every other top name in the sport.
 
Seth Petruzelli (6’0″/224 lbs) made him­self known across Amer­i­can with his stun­ning 14-second knock­out over street-fighting leg­end Kimbo Slice. Along with Slice, he head­lined the first MMA event ever to air on broad­cast tele­vi­sion in the U.S. Petruzelli intro­duced him­self to national fight fans on that night, and now he looks to make his name around the globe by win­ning the K-1 Grand Prix Cham­pi­onship. With a third degree black belt in Shito-Ryu, a form of Oki­nawan karate, Petruzelli is ready to hold his own against the most pow­er­ful fight­ers in the sport on Sep­tem­ber 8.
 
Dewey Cooper, bet­ter known to fans as the “Black Kobra” (6’0″/215 lbs.), is one of the most pop­u­lar U.S. fight­ers ever to com­pete in K-1. After earn­ing two world titles in the WKC and WKF in 2000, he was selected as a K-1 fighter in 2002. In his K-1 debut, he shocked the com­bat sports world when he beat four-time world cham­pion Jean Claude Leyer. Two years later, he reached the finals of K-1 World Grand Prix in Las Vegas. He also became the first man ever to defeat “Mighty Mo.” Cooper lives in the fight cap­i­tal of the world, Las Vegas, where he trains at One Kick’s Gym with his long-time kick­box­ing coach Nick Blom­grem. He also trains in box­ing with Jeff May­weather at the famed Top Rank gym, and holds a pro box­ing record of 19–3-3 with 11 KOs. He owns 49 wins in kick­box­ing with 28 of those com­ing by KO.
 
The 25-year old Randy “Boom Boom” Blake (6’0″/205 lbs.), fight­ing out of Tulsa, Okla­homa, has an unde­feated pro­fes­sional kick­box­ing record of 22–0 with 17 KOs.  He is the cur­rent XFL Light Heavy­weight Kick­box­ing Cham­pion and one of the top ranked stand-up prospects in Amer­ica. He heads in to the U.S. Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships on Sep­tem­ber 8 as one of the young, ris­ing stars com­pet­ing against the very leg­ends upon whom the sport was built.
 
Xavier Vigney (6’7″/223 lbs.) is the IKF U.S. Super Heavy­weight Cham­pion. He is another young, up-and-coming prospect who is ready to make his K-1 debut. With nearly the same height, weight, reach and fight­ing style of arguably the world’s top kick boxer, Badr Hari, Vigney is fight­ing for the oppor­tu­nity to prove he can stand with the very best in the world. Xavier lives in Pleas­ant Hill, Cal­i­for­nia and trains with the respected Team Black, the orig­i­nal Muay Thai branch of the Cesar Gra­cie Fight Team.
 
Hunt­ing­ton Beach native Tony “Kryp­tonite” Lopez (6’5″/223 lbs.) is a three-time cham­pion across mul­ti­ple weight classes in mixed mar­tial arts. He is the for­mer King of the Cage Light Heavy­weight , Heavy­weight and Super Heavy­weight Cham­pion. He holds a black belt in Kyokushin Kaikan karate, which he has used to score a dozen knock­outs over tough oppo­nents includ­ing Kyle Kings­bury and Jason Lambert.
 
“On Sep­tem­ber 8, each of the Amer­i­can heavy­weights will fight to qual­ify for the World Grand Prix Final 16 event tak­ing place Octo­ber 14 in Tokyo,” said Kaplan. “The U.S. fight­ers will com­pete with the mind­set that fight­ing at the famed Sumo National Sta­dium in Tokyo is next, and after that, the World Grand Prix Final 8 in New York City where they could be crowned the new K-1 Cham­pion. That is the dream, that is the goal, it is just a ques­tion of who it will be, and who wants it the most.”
 
K-1 announced seven of the MAX tour­na­ment com­peti­tors includ­ing: Muay Thai World Cham­pion Michael Man­an­quil (35–2), four-time Muay Thai World Cham­pion Kit Cope (23–1, 9 KOs Muay Thai), WBC Inter­na­tional Cham­pion Chaz Mulkey (7–4), Scott Lef­fler (4–2, 3 KOs), MTAA National Cham­pion Bryce Krause (24–3-1), Ben Yelle (6–3), Joey Pagliuso (13–3 Muay Thai) and Justin Greskiewicz (10–5).
 
Four K-1 Super­fights are on the Sep­tem­ber 8 card, among those include a rematch two years in the mak­ing between Romie Adanza vs. Andy How­son, and mak­ing his K-1 debut, “Mr. Light­ning” Lerd­sila Chumpair­tour vs. takes on Gabriel Varga.
 
In addi­tion, three under­card fights will kick off the night fea­tur­ing six K-1 Hope­fuls to be selected from the K-1 Open Try­outs held last week.
 
Doors for the K-1 Ris­ing U.S. Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 8 will open at 4:00 p.m. PT; first bout starts at 5:00 p.m. PT. Main card goes live at 6:00 p.m. PT.
 
More fight­ers and the offi­cial matchups for the K-1 U.S. Grand Prix Cham­pi­onships will be announced early next week.

 

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