Quote:
Originally Posted by Corey Kuropas
That's another thing. Alexio is seen as one of the greatest Full Contact Rules (above the waist) Kickboxers of all time. What a lot of people don't realize is that he was a great Low Kick fighter too.
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He was a great low kick fighter against the competition he faced, but the problem is when he started amping up the competition, going against top international fighters like Cikatic & Longinidis, Longinidis broke Alexio's leg and Alexio didn't fight under those rules anymore (Aside from Miyamoto, who wasn't top level yet was able to knock Alexio down).
When Alexio faced Dick Kimber, he was insinuating there wasn't any other competition out there, yet K-1 had been around for a year back then. A Longinidis rematch should have been there, along with Peter Aerts, Ernesto Hoost, and Masaaki Satake (Satake was top level in the early K-1 days). I won't include Andy Hug because he was a newbie to kickboxing then and got jacked by Pat Smith, although Hug did beat good competition in '94like Cikatic & Jeff Roufus.
On the American scene, Maurice Smith was still around, and Alexio wanted no part of him. It's too bad, because it would have been an interesting fight under any form of kickboxing rules.......In '95, Jeff Roufus knocked out Longinidis in a huge upset, and in that same year Curtis Schuster started making some waves.
It's a shame all these potentially great fights didn't happen. Alexio played it safe later in his career, which is understandable......Plus how many of these guys wanted to fight under full contact rules, especially when K-1 was offering them more cash to fight in Japan under the rules they prefer?
