BELFAST fight promoter Billy Murray is not a betting man. But last weekend the former world kickboxing champ travelled to Las Vegas to roll the dice and make his pitch to bring K1 Kickboxing to his native city.

The single biggest fight phenomenon in Japan – where the K1 final at the 60,000 capacity Tokyo Dome attracts a live television audience of over 20million – it has picked up a head of steam in recent years across the rest of the world.

K1 qualifiers for the Japanese final now take place across Europe and in Vegas they are commanding crowds as big as major professional boxing world title fights.

It was the K1 organisation – that boasts the best heavyweight fight-artists of all codes in the one ring – that Mike Tyson came close to signing with until contract wrangles put paid to it.

Now Murray, who has helped establish Northern Ireland as the powerbase for kickboxing in Europe, wants to step up and bring K1 here.

“It’s the Champions League of kickboxing,” he said after his long trip. “We have been producing a succession of champions in Northern Ireland and putting on events that rival anything boxing can do – but even these are dwarfed by K1. It’s enormous. The fighters are enormous, the purses are enormous – we’re moving up to million dollar fights – and the promotion around each show is enormous. In Japan and the United States it's the biggest pay-per-view event. It’s a travelling charabanc that calls at the major cities, puts on an amazing show then rolls out again – like Formula One.
“We have history in Belfast in being able to organise massive live televised kickboxing shows for a pan European audience and I’m going over to tell K1 we’re ready to work them here.

“It’s exciting and will mark another step forward in Belfast’s growing reputation as a centre of excellence for martial arts. It’s also good for tourism. If Murray succeeds in luring K1 to Belfast, it will attract an even bigger world wide audience than the recent successful UFC event at the Odyssey arena.
Following his meeting with K1 bosses, Murray returns this week to concentrate on the next promotion for his ProKick group.

The ‘Brawl On The Wall’ show takes place in Derry City’s Millennium Forum on September 29 and will be the biggest most significant kickboxing event ever to hit the north west.
It will see fighters from Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France battle against homegrown stars for a succession of European titles.

It has also been revealed that top local TV personality Joe Lindsay, host of BBC TV's Getaways and Inside-Out, will MC the event. World Champion Gary Hamilton will also put in an appearance.

Tickets for the incredible night of action are on sale now. For details contact the Forum box Office on 028 71 264455. Or log onto www.millenniumforum.co.uk - tickets are also available from www.prokickshop.com

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