The reigning king of kickboxing held on to his crown after a much closer fight than expected, with Semmy Schilt winning a hard-fought decision after nine minutes of fighting a game Hesdy Gerges at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 Final 16 in Seoul.
“I think it was a very tough fight,” Schilt said afterward. “It was probably the toughest K-1 fight for me recently.”
The enormous Schilt threw jab after jab after jab in the first round, and although Gerges blocked a lot of Schilt’s punches, enough of them got through that Gerges had a welt on his forehead by the end of the first round. Schilt was mixing in body kicks with his jabs, while Gerges was accomplishing almost nothing offensively.