Karate Combat Makes Offer To Olympic Gold Medalist, Runner-Up

During the final days of the Summer Olympics, the karate competitions took place. 

Previously, Karate Combat’s Adam Kovacs announced that the promotion would offer any gold medalist a multi-year fight contract. 

In the finals of the men’s 75kg+ division, Tareg Hamedi of Saudi Arabia was disqualified against Iran’s Sajad Ganjzadeh for an illegal move. 

Ganjzadeh spent considerable time lying on the tatami before being stretchered off but managed to walk back into the arena to collect the Olympic gold medal, while Hamedi was relegated to silver. 

“Hamedi was ahead on points when he threw that beautifully-timed kick. It should have won him the match. Instead he got disqualified because Olympic karate rules are semi-contact and you are penalized for using excessive force,” Kovacs said. “I love amateur karate – I was a world-level competitor myself – but you don’t find this rule in other amateur combat sports like boxing, wrestling or judo. I think it’s bad for our sport, which is part of what drove us to create a full-contact professional karate league.

“I think Hamedi was robbed of a gold medal and I don’t think that’s how Ganjzadeh wanted to win either. So we’re offering both fighters a rematch in Karate Combat under full-contact rules before the end of the year.

“We’ve already got a contract signed with Ganjzadeh, now we’re reaching out to sign Hamedi and get this rematch made.”