Karate Combat: Evolution Set For September, Title Fight Announced

Karate Combat has announced a new slate of fights to take place in the league’s secret budokan, KC-1.

Karate Combat: Evolution will take place on Saturday, September 21, with two more in 2019 and a regular schedule to be announced for 2020. Bas Rutten continues as an ambassador and commentator, veteran commentator Kenny Rice will join him.

Expanding on its first successful year of fights, which were viewed by millions of fans, Karate Combat’s new season doubles down on a love for 80’s martial arts video games and movies through its Hollywood-level productions. The league will also elevate its fighters, building off their adventures and origin stories in the real world, to make fights more engaging and give fans stand-alone content around their favorite karateka.

Related: Karate Combat Announces 10 Events For 2019

Fights are full contact in the Karate Combat Fighting Pit, at three rounds of three minutes (five rounds for title fights). Knockouts are encouraged and frequent. Karate Combat has become a favorite of the world’s best karate fighters, who enjoy the chance to fight without holding back as they have to in sports karate. Related: Replays And Video Promos For Karate Combate

Karate Combat: Evolution Fight Card

The main event at Karate Combat: Evolution will be the league’s first ever title fight for the Golden Belt. Luis “Pitbull” Rocha (Brazil) faces Edgar “The Bearslayer” Skrivers (Latvia), who have a deep history with both karate and full contact fighting.

“How can you not love Karate Combat?” said Rutten, Karate Combat Ambassador and commentator. “Now we’ve taken the intense, full contact action and added even more of that Street Fighter-type, 80’s movie fun to the production at KC-1, the league’s secret budokan. And hell, we’ve still got the Pit!”

The new events will live stream on the league’s site karate.com. Distribution partners have included UFC Fight Pass, FITE, USA Today, YouTube, Twitch, Titan and Eleven Sports. Past events have been praised by Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Bleacher Report, Sherdog, MMA Fighting, The New York Times, Mashable, CBS News and CNN.

Evolution will also feature a co-main between Dionicio “El Capitan” Gustavo (Dominican Republic) and Joshua “Preacher” Quayhagen (Louisiana, U.S.A.). The whole fight card is packed with world champions and medalists.

Altogether 17 countries will be represented on the card, including French stars Davy Dona and Alexander Bouderbane, Spanish stars Igor de Castaneda and Fernando Paz, and champions from Russia, Egypt, New York City and more.

Two women’s fights will take place: Nadege Ait Ibrahim (Algeria) vs. Omaira Molina (Venezuela) and Ana Luiza Ferreira da Silva (Brazil) vs. Stephanie Kaup (Sweden).

Karate Combat: Evolution will stream live on karate.com at 7 p.m. ET.