Andy's Gloves: The Night that Andy Hug Became a Kickboxer

By 1993 Japan's love of Andy Hug was already taking hold. The mulleted Swiss karateka had been catching eyes in Kyokushin tournaments for years with his unique kicking style and his success against larger opponents. In 1992 Hug had made the transition from Kyokushin style knockdown karate to Seidokeikan. It was during this year or so of Seido competition that K-1, the world's premier kickboxing organization at the time, made their move to secure his services. Hug's bout with Nobuaki Kikuda was shown during the first K-1 Grand Prix and captivated the audience with a new style of kicking which was completely alien in the world of professional kickboxing. K-1 televised his next five matches under Seidokeikan rules, including the tournament for the 1993 world Seidokeikan cup which Hug narrowly lost by tameshiwari (board breaking) to Masaaki Satake—indicating that though Seidokeikan is closely related to kickboxing it is still a bizarre world of its own.

Soon Hug would kickbox, that was clear. K-1 was grooming him to get him into the professional ring and fighting with gloves. But the gloves were the problem: Hug had spent his life competing in knockdown karate tournaments and though these were bareknuckle they prohibited punches to the head. This meant that bouts took on a strange dynamic of trading body blows in close until one man could push his opponent away enough to throw up a high kick. Competing under full kickboxing rules, Hug would have to contend with punches to the head. Many were especially skeptical because of the Dutch style of combination striking into low kicks which was already coming to the fore and the fact that the majority of men in K-1's only division, heavyweight, were thunderous power punchers. Peter Aerts, Maurice Smith, Ernesto Hoost and Branko Cikatic were all knockout artists who had years of experience on Hug and dwarfed him in stature.

In November of 1993, Hug stepped into the ring for the first time as a kickboxer on a K-1 card called Andy's Glove (or "Andy's Globe" as it was displayed on the screen). His opponent was a karateka of little note named Ryuji Murakami. But where Murakami wore gi pants and his black belt in the ring, Hug shed the gi in favor of black Thai style shorts. When Hug swung up his first axe kick as a professional kickboxer the crowd erupted. The threat of punches seemed a non-factor as Hug stayed far away from his opponent throughout, almost running in and out with his kicks. It wasn't the axe kick or the wheel kick which did the job for Hug though, it was a plain old round kick to the body. In what was to become a theme through his career, his opponent over-reacted to the threat of Hug's exotic offence and allowed his own elbow to stray just a little too far from his liver. Murakami rose to beat the count but could not defend himself from the ravenous Hug who quickly descended upon him. The stoppage was awarded to Hug in three minutes flat.

A month later, Hug was matched against a Frenchman named Eric Albert. Hug dashed from his corner and immediately dropped the axe kick, kakato-otoshi on Albert's head. Through the first round and half of the second round Hug stood at long range and attempted—unsuccessfully—to time his axe kicks as Albert closed the distance. Of all the techniques a fighter could choose to attempt as an intercepting counter, the axe kick has to be among the most preposterous. Albert was clearly not a good fighter, and yet Hug seemed to be having a hard time of pulling off the impressive knockout that he wanted. Not threatened by anything Albert had shown, Hug ran in on him in a corner and flurried with his hands against Albert's guard to little effect. Moments later he attempted the same again but this time snuck a left front kick to the face in midway through. Albert folded to the mat and Hug was awarded another knockout victory in a far less impressive manner, but the crowd adored him for it anyway.

It was at this point that K-1 showed that strange matchmaking streak that can be seen in many Japanese fighting promotions: a desire to throw prospects to the lions almost immediately. Rather than another slight step up in competition, K-1 signed Hug to fight Branko Cikatic in March of 1994. Not only was Cikatic a veteran of over seventy professional fights against Hug's two, he had just won K-1's first Grand Prix on the card which Hug vs Kikuda was shown. In a tournament containing Peter Aerts, Maurice Smith and Ernesto Hoost, Cikatic had come out on top. Three men had been matched against Cikatic and he had not just bested but obliterated each.

In the first round Cikatic was matched against the undersized but savvy Thai, Changpuek Kiatsongrit. While Changpuek kicked and moved and evaded most of Cikatic's attempts to hit him, the Tiger only needed to find his mark once. A glancing left hook sent Changpuek through the bottom two ropes and to dreamland.

In the second round Cikatic met Hug's old nemesis and the man who would best him for the Seidokeikan cup, Masaaki Satake. Satake was thrown around the ring like a man in the rigging by Cikatic, covering up as best he could and being sent staggering by the blows on his guard. As the third and final round started the end was in sight for Satake. He had avoided the best blows and while he was bruised he had put in a decent account of himself. Suddenly a short left hand caught him stepping in and he was on the mat and failing to beat the count.

In the final of the Grand Prix, Cikatic met Ernesto Hoost. This was Hoost at the height of his powers, he had just seen off Peter Aerts and Maurice Smith in the two previous rounds, and he was as smooth as silk in the ring. Hoost looked tentative to begin with, but as his snapping low kicks and sharp jabs began to connect he built up a head of steam. Seconds later, Cikatic found his chin and sent Hoost to the mat with a leg stiffening right hand. It could be argued that Cikatic won because he was fresher than Hoost and had the easier path to the final, but in a stand alone match two years later the then forty year old Cikatic did the same again. If ever it could be said of a fighter 'he only needs to find their chin', it was Branko Cikatic. If his victories over Hoost can't convince you, his ninety four percent knockout ratio across eighty-seven career victories can attest to that.

And in the first round of Hug versus Cikatic the match looked exactly as ridiculous as it sounded. Cikatic closed the distance on the timid and circling Hug and opened fire. Hug had been working on his hands—it was the thing that everyone expected to trouble him in his move to kickboxing after all—but all he really knew how to do on defense was cover up. Like a droplet in a storm whipping in beneath an angled umbrella, Cikatic's uppercut sent Hug stumbling and the referee stepped in to give him the count.

Things looked desperate for Hug as he re-established the distance and repeatedly attempted to fake his left kick and step into a left straight punch. This combination would become the scourge of K-1 allowing Hug to knockdown far superior boxers like Ray Sefo with his hands but that night against Cikatic all it was doing was allowing Cikatic to land his own left each time Hug stepped in. The sound of each Cikatic connection was frightening.

Each time Cikatic moved in, Hug would do the smart thing and attempt to clinch. But knees from the double collar tie were still entirely legal under K-1 rules. These were how Hug was able to finish Kikuda in that Seidokeikan match the same night that Cikatic won the Grand Prix. But Cikatic towered over Hug and Hug gave up weight to Cikatic. A loose clinch would be death for Hug as the Crotian slugger attempted to pull him around and throw up high knees whenever possible.

Then something changed. A wheel kick attempt from Hug which caught Cikatic with the calf, followed by a front kick to the face. A reminder of why Hug was such a highly touted prospect, there was an area where he was more dangerous than Branko. But the true change in the complexion of the bout came shortly after as Hug plunged into a clinch again. Cikatic was looking to get free and swing or grab the head as usual and Hug released him just enough to crack him across the jaw with a left hook. Suddenly Cikatic held on.

The two broke and were back out in the open. Hug threw up another wheel kick. Cikatic was waiting now. There was no bull rush. He threw a kick and hopped back before Hug could return. At some point over those few seconds Hug stopped surviving and was now in a kickboxing match.

As the bell sounded for the second round, Cikatic looked to have regained his confidence as Hug immediately dropped an axe kick on him and Cikatic charged in to make him pay. The early round was once again all Cikatic as Hug clung on and ran away when he could, but again Cikatic slowed mid round. Hug threw up a running axe kick and as he came down from it landed a stiff left hand on Cikatic from about twelve inches apart. Cikatic grabbed the clinch and Hug hammered him with the left hook again. Cikatic retreated to the ropes, clearly dazed and Hug chased him with punches and a front kick to the face. The referee stepped in to give Cikatic the count and Hug had levelled the playing field.

What the Grand Prix champion was learning was that while Hug couldn't box for love nor money, he could punch. Every time there was a break in the Cikatic onslaught, every time the champion held the clinch a little loosely, Hug would return with a left hook which maybe travelled half a foot but which turned the open mouthed champion's head around. And the longer the fight went the more it favoured Hug because he was a relatively young, hungry athlete in his athletic prime and Cikatic was pushing forty. The power was still there in the later going but it came more obviously: Hug wasn't getting caught with deceptively fast blows as he attempted something of his own. He was waiting for the gaps and clipping Cikatic in his breaks.

Branko Cikatic seemed to age twenty years from the second round to the fifth. By the final round he was pushing his punches and eating stiff left hands in return, while Hug was throwing his kicks with more confidence and taking the fight to Cikatic in every range of the engagement. When the judges' results came in there was no question that Hug deserved it and it proved to be one of the few occasions when that peculiar Japanese matchmaking made the result even more impressive. No record padding, no favors from the judges, Hug had been given and opportunity and he made it count.

Beating the first and then only K-1 Grand Prix champion, did that mean that Hug was the best kickboxer in the world? Not even nearly. Hug's loss to Patrick Smith in his next bout would show just how incomplete a product he still was but Hug had shown everything he needed to against Cikatic and more. He had shown he had the head to clinch and avoid the big blows, and the heart to take them and keep going, but perhaps most importantly he showed that he had a mind for this game. Those who knew him from the karate circuit were already aware that Hug fought as much with his brain as with his dazzling kicking arsenal. In 1994 Hug didn't have the polished combinations and set ups, or much in the way of defense, but he had the mind to become the finest offensive tactician that the sport of kickboxing has ever seen. Over the six years that followed before Hug's untimely death in August of 2000, he did just that.

Pick up Jack's new kindle book, Finding the Art, or find him at his blog, Fights Gone By.