This was the 10th fight of Kid Yamamoto’s current 14-fight win streak, and ended, as most of Kid’s fights do, with a first-round knockout. Yamamoto most recently put Rani Yahya to sleep at K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! Genki Sudo is perhaps best known for his near-victory on Ninja Warrior.

While Yarennoka! was ringing in 2008 in Saitama, K-1 was celebrating its own New Year’s Eve MMA tradition in Osaka with its Premium 2007 Dynamite!! show, a 15-fight card that featured Joachim Hansen, Kid Yamamoto, Kazushi Sakuraba, and a marquee matchup between Bob Sapp and Bobby Ologun. (Full results from the night can be found here.) You already know Bob Sapp as the crybaby brawler who we’ve begged to retire. Bobby Ologun is a Nigerian-born television personality, beloved in Japan for his butchering of the Japanese language and minstrel-like facial expressions; he’s fought at the last four K-1 Premium Dynamite!! events, including a 16-second loss to Hong Man Choi last year. On Monday, Bob Sapp needed over four minutes to beat Ologun. It’s hard to think of an American equivalent to a sideshow like this — maybe picture Tracy Morgan spending four months in a gym and then fighting Mike Tyson. Enjoy…

Apologies for our utter lack of attention to the results of Saturday’s K-1 World Grand Prix 07 Final tournament, but now that the Hong Man Choi/Fedor Emelianenko rumors are swirling again (read on after the jump), something needs to be said.

First things first: Surprising few, Hong Man Choi lost in the quarterfinal match to French kickboxing star Jerome LeBanner, who succumbed to a leg injury in the semi-final round to Semmy Schilt (the eventual tournament-winner). The matchups went down like this:

QUARTERFINALS
Jerome LeBanner def. Hong Man Choi (unan. dec.)
Semmy Schilt def. Glaube Feitosa (unan. dec.)
Remy Bonjasky def. Badr Hari (majority dec.)
Peter Aerts def. Junichi Sawayashiki (KO, round 1)

SEMI-FINALS
Semmy Schilt def. Jerome LeBanner (corner stoppage, round 2)
Peter Aerts def. Remy Bonjasky (unan. dec)

FINAL MATCH
Semmy Schilt def. Peter Aerts (KO, round 1)

A detailed recap of the night’s events can be found at MMA Weekly, who made the following observation:

Schilt’s victory continues a Dutch domination of K-1 that is nothing short of astounding. The three Dutch fighters in tonight’s WGP Final all won their quarterfinals, and were only eliminated by fellow Dutchmen; the K-1 WGP Champion has been a Dutchman for the last six years; and in K-1′s 15-year history, a Dutch fighter has won the WGP 12 times.

Well sure, it’s like I’ve always said: “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”

Anyway, back to our boy Hong…

Rumor has it that the first official M-1 Global event will feature Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett battling it out in Newark, so I thought I’d post a vid of “The Baby-Faced Assassin” in action. A veteran of both the UFC and PRIDE organizations, Barnett has a record of 25-5 and holds notable wins over Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Aleksander Emelianenko, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, which makes him a much more credible opponent for Fedor than Hong Man Choi. This fight is from K-1 ROMANEX in May 2004, and features a wild ending where both fighters are hanging through the ropes (though feel free to skip past the first 2:25 unless you speak Japanese):

To see Barnett’s win over Aleksander Emelianenko, go here. Hopefully Fedor will get a chance to avenge his lil’ brudder‘s beating…

The rumors are true — Fedor Emelianenko will be fighting in Japan on New Year’s Eve, according to an announcement on Greg Savage’s Savage Radio Show. And now for the truly bizarre details…

— The fight will not be M-1 Global’s first event. Instead, the event is being organized by a Japanese outfit called Hustle Pro Wrestling. It looks like Fedor’s already taking advantage of the wiggle-room in his M-1 contract.

— His opponent will be Hong Man Choi. Choi is a 7’2″, 352-pound behemoth, who, according to MMA Junkie, “suffers from a rare disease that causes him to continue growing throughout his life.” Which must be really frustrating during weigh-ins.

— Choi built up a 12-3 record in the K-1 kickboxing league, but has only one MMA fight to his credit, a 16-second TKO victory over Bobby Ologun, who weighed nearly 150 pounds less than him.

— Choi was supposed to be Brock Lesnar’s first MMA opponent, at the K-1 Dynamite!! USA show in June, but the California State Athletic Commission wouldn’t clear him to fight, reportedly because of a benign tumor on his pituitary gland. Lesnar went on to cream replacement Min Soo Kim in 69 seconds, and we’re left to dream of what could have been…

In the headlining match at yesterday’s K-1 HERO’s Korea event in Seoul, Yoshihiro Akiyama proved that he had no ring rust from his 10-month lubrication-related suspension. Though he was generally considered an underdog in his matchup against Denis Kang — an American Top Team member who had gone 20-1-1 with one no contest in his last 23 fights — Akiyama looked razor-sharp once he settled in, busting Kang’s nose with a jab and stalking his opponent until he connected with a right uppercut that put Kang’s lights out. Check out 6:22-6:24 — that nose isn’t so much broken as exploded.