Kazuyuki Miyata's Reaction to HDNet K-1 Commentary

On July 23, HDnet's North American broadcast of July 5's K-1 Max 2010 contained frank and critical commentary from Michael Schiavello and FEG USA president Mike Kogan. This was covered by MMA media outlets like MMAFighting.com and BloodyElbow.com.

A Refreshing Piece of Candor on a K-1 Broadcast

Honest Moments in Combat Sports Commentating: Michael Schiavello and Mike Kogan Do K-1 Edition by Bloody Elbow

Since then, Miyata seems to have found out about it and has reacted on his blog.

Kazuyuki Miyata's blog July/27/2010

Here is a translation of his reaction (note: he only names Mike Kogan in his blog entry):

"K-1 USA's commentary man Mike Kogan was insulting me.

"He knows me but he's still saying things like that? I have confidence at 63kg. Of course, I have confidence in K-1 too. I have many weapons. I can win with my body strength alone at that div. I'm so pissed off that I'll fight in the next K-1 as well. I'll even fight anybody.

"I really want to kick someone's ass. It's been a long time since I've felt that way."


Kazuyuki Miyata

My personal opinion is that Miyata should not be the one blamed by the commentators. I think Miyata is better at MMA and should be fighting in MMA. However, the reason he is doing K-1 is that he was offered a fight from the organization. Miyata probably found it difficult to decline since he has a long history and relationship with K-1 Hero's, which is the promotion that produced him and made him popular in Japan. However, the organization's responsibility should still be to make the best kickboxing-oriented matchups, and not a match pitting a boxer versus an MMA fighter.

Alas, why must we still be saying these kinds of things in 2010?

Big thanks to Tony Loiseleur (from Sherdog) for English editing.