At the press conference in Tokyo last week, 'The Lumberjack' Peter Aerts announced: "Kickboxing is my purpose in life. It has been a long-time dream of mine to form a new organization". With LEGEND, Aerts is making that dream a reality in 2024.
The CEO of the new organization has big plans for his new project: "In the future the organization would like to invite champions from each country and hold matches like in the old K-1. I would like to organize a tournament like this". LEGEND is aiming to do this by bringing in overseas fighters to match with Japanese talent, while simultaneously developing new young prospects out of the amateur circuit. With Atsushi Taisei, Aerts seems to have found the right man for the job. Taisei currently fulfills a position in the Japanese Amateur Kickboxing Council and will take the role of general producer: "This is not an event that will end in one year. We are thinking of an event that will foster kickboxing and martial arts in the world 10 or 20 years from now."
SUPPORT FROM THE COMMUNITY
Aerts can count on the support of many of his former friends and foes. At the presser familiar faces from the K-1 era showed their support in video messages. Among others, Mirko Filipovic, Jerome Le Banner and Ray Sefo send in a video. As well as some of the leading organizational bodies such as ISKA, WKU, RCFA and WKO, who pledged their cooperation.
DIFFERENT RULESETS
One thing that makes LEGEND stand out is that they don’t plan on limiting themselves to one ruleset. Taisei stated: "Basically, we are thinking about the market not only in Japan but all over the world, so we want the rules to be the greatest common denominator".
Aerts revealed that LEGEND is also aiming to host Muay Thai and Karate matchups, while Taisei played with the idea of going back to the original 5 rounds of 3 minutes. "So we have to negotiate the rules. We're thinking about it in the general framework of kickboxing".
PLANS FOR 2024
The organization is set to debut with an exciting rookie event in Tokyo on the 24th of March. The first big showdown with foreign fighters is scheduled for June, with another rookie event in the pipeline for August or September. LEGEND aims to end its debuting year in November, when they will bring in another bunch of foreign fighters.
