Now that Japanese ace Akio “Musashi” Mori is on his last legs, the K-1 has realized that there are no successors to represent Japan , the country that has held the company on their collective shoulders since 1993. The kickboxing promotional company is on a drive to recruit its next superstar. I have a piece of advice for the young wide-eyed heavyweight Japanese hopefuls. Avoid the K-1 like the plague, HIV and crystal meth. I apologize for sounding crass, but this is important.

The K-1 has the reputation for taking unripe talent and putting them through a perilous gauntlet of dangerous fighters with little (if any) chance of survival. In cold unfeeling K-1 terms, it was a win-win situation. Japanese fighters are relatively cheap. If they get knocked out cold, K-1 fans get to see a high KO ratio. If one of the fighters gets lucky, so much the better. Footage of a Japanese fighter scoring a knockdown, KO or win over a top K-1 foreigner is priceless. So far, Tsuyoshi Nakasako’s knockdown against Mark Hunt and Mori’s wins over Sefo and Aerts are all they have.

The following chart shows the win-loss stats for Japanese fighters in the K-1. Akio Mori, the current national representative, has lost 33% of his fights. Fifteen (15) of his wins come from the K-1 Japan Tournament which features Japanese opponents only. Other Japanese fighters have also collected their wins from each other. When they get matched with foreign opponents, the risk increases dramatically. A one-in-five chance (20%) of getting knocked out is common.

When a tall high school graduate named Hiraku Hori appeared on the scene in 2001, it seemed like the K-1 had learned their lesson and decided to take responsibility for fighter development. The budding Hori had a regular spot on Saturday night’s late sportscast. Call it “reality TV light”. Hori’s development seemed to be on schedule. I even felt he was progressing at an above average pace. Then the K-1 got bored or impatient and Hori got his brain scrambled first by Mighty Mo Siliga and most recently by Peter Aerts. He has lost 9 of his 19 matches (47%) and been knocked out in 7 matches (42% overall).

As much as I would like to see the K-1 get a solid Japanese replacement for Mori, I wouldn’t trust them with the job of developing any youth. In fact, based on their history in the field of fighter development, they would have to accept that they have burned out fistfuls of potentials and come up empty handed.

My advice to any young Japanese fighter is to stay away for the K-1. There are other promotional companies that will guide and develop fighters for something called “the future”.

Back to reality, the K-1 will succeed in recruiting several hopefuls and, impatient for a contender, will wager their careers on million-to-one chances with disastrous results.

I hope I’m wrong this time.