K-1 World GP 2004 in Nagoya Update
June 6th, 2004 Nagoya Rainbow Hall Nagoya, Japan
Sportsnavi is reporting that three professional boxers will participate in K-1's June 6th event. Former IBF cruiserweight champion Vassiliy Jirov (33-2, 29 KO's), former WBO heavyweight champion Ray Mercer (33-5-1, 25 KO's), and boxer turned K-1 regular Frans Botha are all scheduled to participate against K-1 kickboxers. Among those mentioned as possible opponents for them - Ernesto Hoost, Alexey Ignashov, and Peter Aerts. Recent K-1 MMA Romanex winner Gary Goodridge was also mentioned as a possible opponent for Aerts. There are also possible bouts between Martin Holm & Marvin Eastman and Aziz Khattou & Petr Vondrachek.
Jirov was undefeated until he faced four time world champion James Toney (64-4-2, 43 KO's) in April of 2003. Jirov dropped a 12 round unanimous decision to Toney and lost his title. Jirov rebounded for two more wins before moving up to heavyweight and losing a close, close 10 round decision in his last bout to Joe Mesi (29-0, 25 KO's) in March of this year.
Ray Mercer is scheduled to box on June 8th so his participation is suspect. Mercer has won three in a row since losing to Wladimir Klitschko (42-3, 39 KO's) in June of 2002 via sixth round TKO for the WBO heavyweight title. Mercer's last bout was in February of this year when he defeated Steve Pannell by third round TKO.
Possibles for June 6th: - Cyril Abidi - Peter Aerts - Frans Botha - Shannon Briggs - Marvin Eastman - Gary Goodridge - Martin Holm - Ernesto Hoost - Alexey Ignashov - Vassiliy Jirov - Aziz Khattou - Ray Mercer - Petr Vondrachek - Carter Williams
card subject to change (5/23/04)
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