Lollo:

..."sure. I remember Oliver Sperling said before he fought at the grand prix that even if Mark is super fit and dropped down his weight, he still can't see him going past Le Banner"

You are right dear Lollo. I really didn’t believe that Mark was able to defeat Jerome. And please let me explain why.

First of all, Jerome was undefeated before the K-1 2001 Grand Prix. Jerome has not lost a single fight in more than 18 month before his fight against Mark Hunt. Jerome had been fighting 13 K-1 fight the last 18 month, and he won 10 of them by KO, and Mark has had some defeats against fighters that I would not call top 10 fighters in the game. (Peter Graham is one of them.)

So if you have to be a 110 % honest to the game and to your self Lollo, and also all you NZ/kiwi's on this board, Jerome was the biggest favorite. It has nothing to do about Mark Hunt, his weight, style, strength or anything, but simply the fact that on the paper Jerome was "the" biggest favorite!!!

Another fact is also, that Jerome has much more experience than Mark Hunt. I mean... fighting in the Tokyo Dome for the first time, against one of the biggest favorites for the title do not make you chances bigger - if you get my point?

And finally, as I see it, Mark has "only" been fighting two top fighters before the Grand Prix, and that has been against Ray Sefo and Hoost, and he has lost to both of them. Peter Graham, Adam Watt and all the local guys’ back home in NZ are all great fighters, but they are not on the same level as Jerome, Ignashov, Leko, Mike Bernado, Filho, Aerts and Van Dams. So if Hunt has lost to Ray Sefo, I can or could not see how he should defeat Jerome...??

But he did, and he did also became champion. But now you know why I did not believe in Mark, and to be honest, I think that my argument deserves just a little credit, and not dirt.