TaCa Replaces Roman Mailov in Krush 67kg Tournament

After stepping in for Houcine Bennoui to face Yuta Kubo in the opening round of the Krush 67kg Tournament on January 14th, Krush has announced that Roman Mailov has sustained an injury in training and will be replaced by TaCa. TaCa was originally set to fight in the reserve bout against MA Kick champion Jun Nakazawa, but now gets his shot in the main tournament against favorite Yuta Kubo. TaCa is a heavy-handed fighter who handed Hideaki Yamazaki his first loss and competed in the 63kg WILDRUSH League, where he went 2-3 (1 KO), finishing in 4th place. Although he is just 3-6 in the past 2 years, he has fought a pretty good schedule, with the 3 losses in the WILDRUSH League coming to 1st, 3rd and 5th placed Hideaki Yamazaki, NOMAN and Yukimitsu Takahashi, while his 3 losses in 2011 came to Ryuji Kajiwara, Ikki and Naoki Terasaki. His wins include his first fight against Yamazaki and wins in the WILDRUSH League over Naoki Terasaki and 2nd placed Hitoshi Tsukagoshi. Quite honestly, he has nothing to lose here as Kubo is considered a huge favorite and the expectations for TaCa are low, considering he didn't initially make it into the tournament field. I expect him to come out guns blazing, but unless he is able to hurt Kubo badly in the opening round, I don't see him doing very well. Replacing TaCa in the reserve bout against Nakazawa is Yoshihiro Tomihita, who went 4-0 in 2012 with a pair of stoppages.

One interesting thing to note is that this makes Abdallah Ezbiri the only remaining non-Japanese fighter in the tournament and he has a tough quarterfinal fight against Yuji Nashiro.

Full fight card for Jawin Presents Krush Grand Prix 2013 ~67kg First Class Tournament~ after the break



60kg Opening Fight (1): Katsuya Goto vs Leona Pettas

55kg Opening Fight (2): Shuichi Wentz vs Masahiro

63kg Opening Fight (3): Yukimitsu Takahashi vs Atsushi Ogata

63kg Opening Fight (4): Hisaki Higashimoto vs Taito

63kg Opening Fight (5): Minoru Kimura vs NOMAN

64.5kg Super Fight (6): Hiroya vs Keiji Ozaki

67kg Tournament Reserve Fight (7): Jun Nakazawa vs Yoshihiro Tomohita

67kg Tournament Quarterfinal #1 (8): Yuji Nashiro vs Abdallah Ezbiri

67kg Tournament Quarterfinal #2 (9): Hitoshi Tsukagoshi vs Yuya Yamamoto

67kg Tournament Quarterfinal #3 (10): Yuta Kubo vs TaCa

67kg Tournament Quarterfinal #4 (11): Shintaro Matsukura vs Makihira Keita

60kg Super Fight (12): Naoki Ishikawa vs Junpei Aotsu

63kg Super Fight (13): Masaaki Noiri vs Makoto Nishiyama

67kg Tournament Semifinal #1 (14): Winner of Quarterfinal #1 vs Winner of Quarterfinal #2

67kg Tournament Semifinal #2 (15): Winner of Quarterfinal #3 vs Winner of Quarterfinal #4

61kg Super Fight (16): Yuji Takeuchi vs Hirotaka Miyakawa

55kg Super Fight (17): Shota Takiya vs Mike Alamos

67kg Tournament Final (18): Winner of Semifinal #1 vs Winner of Semifinal #2

http://www.liverkick.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2200:taca-replaces-roman-mailov-in-krush-67kg-tournament&catid=37:kickboxing