Videos and impressions of Oktagon 2016 | Bellator – Turin, Italy – 16/04/2016

The 22nd edition of the well known Italian K-1 event: Oktagon 2016, moved from their usual location in Milan to Turin, Italy on Saturday 16th April 2016. This year it was organized in a partnership with the big American MMA promotion: Bellator.
MuayFarang.com was present and provided live results in worldwide preview.
For sure this one was the biggest and most important event of the series, with an amazing crowd that filled PalaAlpitour in Turinn, thanks also to the collaboration with the big American organization Bellator; in fact, the event will be broadcasted on American Spike TV  in 5 days.
The event was well organized, even in the small details, also a nice scenography, but in general it suffered a bit the matchmaking.
For sure our eyes are used to the big Thai and international Muay Thai events. Often French and Thai promoters put more effort on putting up exciting and close fights and in the event’s promotion and visibility via media and TV.

Combat sports experts tend to pay more attention on a card where the results of the fight is unknown, rather than the event fancy scene set (we actually share this philosophy).
For sure Oktagon and Bellator promoters have done an amazing job, taking very good care of marketing and scenography; who will forget about the cage coming from the ceiling?
For sure the hardcore fans would have like more “plot twists” on the ring, but we all know how hard it is to combine excel in both aspects.

Some of the fighters we really liked were:

Alexandru Negrea, Taccini, Gloria Peritore and Kevin Ross.

Tarik Totts vs Wang Shanwei, was an amazing fight from the Kickboxing perspective.

Mustapha Haida vs Karim Ghajji:
The fight featured Ghajji’s ISKA World title and Haida should have done a big effort to conquer it.

During the first rounds the event was mostly balanced, with a little plus of Ghajji, even though both athletes were striking nice combinations. But after the 3rd round the French fighter increased (nn mi viene la paroal lol) and eventually won the fight without even much effort, totally controlling and dominating his opponent in the last 2 rounds.
Much of Oktagon’s audience was interested in “The Doctor” Giorgio Petrosyan, that as it is know, he’s the best K-1 fighter of the World (-70kg), a natural talent that in the years has won the most important titles of the world and has a record of only 2 defeats ( 1 at Lumpinee Stadium and 1 with Andy Ristie at Glory).

The big fan audience was satisfied with another victory against Ravy Brunow, but the fight wasn’t as exciting as what “King Giorgio” made us get used to in the past; for sure the emotions coming from his victory repaid the immense number of fans in the arena.

Armen Petrosyan defeated the strong Chinese fighter Wang Tengyue, a difficult opponent who was always moving around the ring in a strange way. In some occasions the fight seemed like a boxing Match.

Great KO by Alessio Sakara against the American Brian Rogers.
In conclusion:

It was a big event that for sure brings combat sports to another level of notoriety and increases the promoters turnover.

For sure it would have been nice to see a matchmaking with more suspense, that could satisfy even the most picky fans and give the right amount of unpredictability.

Maybe it’s just a dream but we hope that the next editions will feature some Muay Thai “full rules” fights or as it was called in the last editions: “Made in Thailand”.

Video:

Pictures by: Oktagon

Chok Dee