Badr Hari

Badr Hari (Arabic: بدر هاري; born 8 December 1984) is a Moroccan-Dutch professional kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter. Born in Amsterdam, Hari made his professional kickboxing debut in 2000, and quickly rose to fame with his aggressive and explosive style. In 2002, he became the WPKL Dutch Muay Thai champion and The Eight Tournament champion (Muay Thai). In 2007, he became the K-1 Heavyweight World Champion when he defeated Yusuke Fujimoto by knockout in 56 seconds. He defended his title twice, against Doug Viney and Ray Sefo, before losing it to Remy Bonjasky by disqualification in 2008.

In 2009, Hari reached the final of the K-1 World Grand Prix for the second time. Also that year, he became the It's Showtime Heavyweight World Champion. He would defend his title against Mourad Bouzidi, before losing it to Hesdy Gerges in May 2010 by disqualification. In 2012, Hari faced a two-year suspension from kickboxing after being found guilty of assault charges. Two years later, he won the GFC Fight Series 1 Heavyweight Tournament Championship when he defeated Peter Graham by technical knockout in the first round. In 2016, he made his Glory debut in a highly anticipated bout against Heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven, which he lost by technical knockout (Arm injury) in the second round.

Hari is widely considered one of the greatest kickboxers of all time. Outside his competitive kickboxing career, Hari has been the subject of multiple documentaries.

Early life

Hari was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is of Berber descent and his parents are Moroccans from the Houara tribe of the Sous region, who relocated to the Netherlands before Hari was born. Hari began practicing kickboxing at the age of seven, under the guidance of former World Champion Mousid Akamrane. As a teenager he trained at the Sitan Gym of Mohammed Aït Hassou. When the Sitan Gym moved to Rotterdam, he joined the famous Chakuriki Gym run by Thom Harinck. Hari was fighting under the Dutch flag until a loss against Stefan Leko in 2005. It was the first time his parents attended one of his fights and he was asked to address the Dutch audience. Hari could not be understood and the audience proceeded to boo him, after which Hari was quoted saying "I thought to myself, I have never witnessed such ungratefulness". From then on Hari has represented Morocco and stopped working with Thom Harinck. Mike Passenier became his new coach.

Kickboxing career

Early career

At the age of seven, Hari was sent by his father to the kickboxing gym to learn how to defend himself from bullies in the neighborhood. People realized he was a talent and from the age of 11 he was fighting regularly as a junior. In his teenage years he worked with the trainer Thom Harinck at Chakuriki Gym and it was at this time he started to become known on the Amsterdam scene.

At the age of 18 he had 50 amateur fights on his record and was ready to fight at a professional level. A year later he was fighting in front of an audience of thousands at the Johan Cruijf Arena, the biggest soccer stadium in the Netherlands. His opponent was Alexey Ignashov. Hari took the fight on short notice and lost, but won respect from the crowd and from Ignashov for his display of heart.

Road to K-1

Hari's road to fame began with a pair of matches against Stefan Leko in 2005. The first took place at an '' It's Showtime 2005'' event in June 2005. Hari had started trash talk between him and his opponent before the fight but Hari's unusually long ring entrance ended up being longer than the fight itself, where Hari was knocked out by Leko's trademark spinning back kick.

Hari in November 2005 entered the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2005'' tournament as a reserve fighter against Leko, making his K-1 World GP debut at the age of 20. Hari knocked out Leko by a spinning back high kick to the jaw at 1:30 in the second round. After the bad blood between both fighters, Hari helped his opponent up and escorted the dazed German to the corner.

''K-1 New Zealand 2006''

In 2006, Badr Hari was scheduled to participate in the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2006 in Amsterdam'' on 13 May, but fought in the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2006 in Auckland'', in New Zealand, instead as a last minute replacement. His opponent in the first round was Australian Peter "The Chief" Graham. In the actual fight Hari was knocked out by Graham's trademark "Rolling Thunder". The heel hit Hari hard on the head and knocked him out.

Return to K-1

Hari returned to the ring at the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2006 final elimination'' in Osaka, Japan against Ruslan Karaev. Karaev hurt Badr with a straight right that left Hari slouching over in the corner, then Karaev delivered a kick to Hari's face: Hari was counted out by the referee/ Six months later, Hari would get a rematch.

Despite being knocked out, Hari was once again picked as a reserve fighter in the '' K-1 Grand Prix 2006 Finals'' against Paul Slowinski. He won the fight by unanimous decision. Hari then fought the Danish Nicholas Pettas at the '' K-1 Premium 2006 Dynamite!!'' event and broke Pettas's left shoulder in the second round with a right high kick.

Hari got his revenge against Karaev at the '' K-1 World GP 2007 in Yokohama''. Karaev and Hari's matchup was one of two bouts to qualify for the first K-1 heavyweight title match, scheduled on 28 April 2007 in Hawaii. Hari landed a right cross to score a KO.

K-1 Heavyweight champion

On 28 April, at ''K-1 World GP 2007 in Hawaii'', Badr Hari and Yusuke Fujimoto fought for the newly introduced Heavyweight belt. Hari won the fight in 56 seconds with a kick to the chin. Hari became the first ever K-1 Heavyweight champion.

Hari got his chance for revenge against Peter Graham, whose turning kick had broken his jaw in 2006, in Hong Kong at the ''K-1 World Grand Prix 2007 in Hong Kong''. He dropped Graham with a body punch and won by unanimous decision. After the bout, Hari and Graham seemed to bury the hatchet, hugging each other, although the two started taunting each other again at the post-fight press conference.

In September 2007 at the ''K-1 World GP 2007 final elimination'', Badr Hari beat the ''K-1 World GP 2007 in Las Vegas'' tournament champion, Doug Viney, by a second-round KO and qualified for his first K-1 World GP Final, held on 8 December in Yokohama, Japan. His winning streak came to an end with a decision loss to Remy Bonjasky, in the quarter-finals.

2008

''K-1 World GP 2008''

All of Hari's wins in 2008 were by knockouts, by beating Ray Sefo in Yokohama, Glaube Feitosa (whom he defended his heavyweight title) in Fukuoka and Domagoj Ostojic in Hawaii. On his next fight in Seoul he qualified for the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 Final'' by TKO win over the Korean Hong Man Choi.

In the quarterfinals on 6 December, Hari defeated three time K-1 World champion Peter Aerts by TKO in the second round. In the semi-final he knocked out Errol Zimmerman and advanced to his first K-1 Final against Remy Bonjasky. After suffering a knockdown in the first, Hari was disqualified in the second round for unsportsmanlike conduct by having stomped and punched an already downed Bonjasky. First the referee Nobuaki Kakuda issued a yellow card and one point deduction. Meanwhile, Hari proceeded to Bonjasky's corner shouting, and quarreled with his opponent's trainer Ivan Hippolyte who then also approached Hari aggressively, but the officials prevented any further physical contact between them.Murphy, Jim (6 December 2008
Wild finish gives Remy Bonjasky K-1 World GP championship
thesavagescience.com After the five-minute recovery time elapsed, the doctor reported Bonjasky was seeing double and could not continue. Hari was issued a red card and Bonjasky was declared the K-1 World GP 2008 champion.
, 6 December 2008, ''K-1''

In later interviews Hari claimed Bonjasky was acting, and that "Remy's corner was screaming at him to stay down". At a press conference before the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 in Yokohama'', where Alistair Overeem attended along with Bonjasky, Overeem handed Bonjasky a statue which looked exactly like the statue of Oscar, implying Bonjasky was acting.

Although numerous Japanese media sources assumed that K-1 would suspend Hari indefinitely, he was not suspended, but he received the most severe punishment in the history of K-1. K-1 stripped him of his heavyweight title, his runner-up title in the tournament, his prize money from the tournament and the full amount of his fee for participation in the tournament.

''Dynamite!! 2008''

While there were many rumours of his and his opponent's participation, it was finally announced that Hari would face MMA Heavyweight Alistair Overeem in a K-1 rules match on K-1's New Year's Eve extravaganza '' Dynamite!! 2008''. Hari lost the fight by a left hook KO at 2:02 in the first round."K-1 2008 Dynamite!! results : Badr Hari vs. Alistair Overeem"
, 31 December 2008, ''Sponichi'' After the match, Hari commented that this would be the last time he would participate in the ''Dynamite!!'' series, and that he would stick to stand-up fighting so he would never have an MMA rules match with Overeem.

2009

In May 2009 at the '' It's Showtime 2009 Amsterdam'', Hari fought Semmy Schilt in a bout for the newly introduced It's Showtime World Heavyweight title. Hari came out very aggressively and knocked Schilt down twice in the first round. The fight was stopped after the second knockdown and Hari took the heavyweight title in 45 seconds."Badr wins dramatically!! May 16 It's Showtime results"
18 May 2009, ''K-1'' Simon Rutz, the president of It's Showtime, has referred to this as one of his favorite bouts in the history of It's Showtime.

In September 2009 at the ''K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 Final 16'', Hari again used his right body shot to score a first-round knockout over Zabit Samedov.

At the selection for the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 Final'' Hari chose to fight Ruslan Karaev for the third time. He made quick work of his first 2 opponents in the tournament with first-round knockouts over Ruslan Karaev and Alistair Overeem. Then in the final of the World Grand Prix Hari lost in a rematch against Semmy Schilt by KO after being knocked down 3 times in the first round.

2010

His first fight in 2010 was at the '' It's Showtime 2010 Prague'' in the Czech Republic, where Hari defended his Showtime heavyweight title with a second-round knockout over Mourad Bouzidi. In April Hari defeated Alexey Ignashov in the '' K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 in Yokohama''. The fight went to decision, Hari's first non-knockout win in 3 years.

''It's Showtime 2010 Amsterdam''

Hari's Showtime title was again on the line against his former Chakuriki fellow Hesdy Gerges in Amsterdam in May. Before the match, he claimed in a press interview that his opponent at the event was originally planned to be Remy Bonjasky but Bonjasky refused to fight Hari, stating Bonjasky was afraid to lose.

The '' It's Showtime 2010 Amsterdam'' event took place at the Amsterdam Arena in May 2010. Hari dominated most of the first round, hitting Gerges many times and having him on the ropes. Hesdy surprised everyone on the night for taking the punishment. In the second round, Hari knocked down Gerges, and when Gerges was standing up, Badr Hari kicked him in the face. Badr was again disqualified and did not speak in the ring after Gerges was announced the winner. Instead, training partner Melvin Manhoef apologized to the fans on Badr's behalf but was booed by the crowd. Gerges became the new "Its Showtime" Heavyweight champion.

2011

After the Gerges fight, Hari took a year off from kickboxing. He stated that it was his own choice. He made his return to the ring at It's Showtime 2011 Lyon against French Kickboxer, Gregory Tony. Hari won by TKO in round one.

Though the biggest interest was for Badr to rematch Hesdy Gerges for the Showtime heavyweight title it was announced that he would fight Romanian Daniel Ghita in September. Ghita had been ranked as one of the best 5 kickboxers in the world. Ghita had lost a decision against Gerges earlier in the year, but many felt he had been robbed and viewed him as a tough opponent for Hari.Walsh, Dave
"Badr Hari to Return to Action in May"
21 January 2011, ''LiverKick.com''

The fight never materialised. Hari stated that he will compete in the 2011 K-1 World Grand Prix in October and December, and then face Gökhan Saki