Daniel Ghiţă, the first Romanian into the K1 Final

Daniel Ghiţă qualified into the K1 grand final in Japan for the first time ever after defeating Dutch Erol Zimmerman in a match within the K1 World Grand Prix Final 16 Gala in Seoul. Ghiţă knocked out the Dutch at the beginning of the second round, managing to get him to the floor with four consecutive blows. The punches got Zimmerman to the floor and Ghiţă has thus become the first Romanian to qualify into the K1 final, scheduled to be held in Yokohama, Japan on December 11.



Daniel Ghiţă (born April 22, 1981) is a professional Romanian Heavyweight kickboxer and a martial artist. He is a former WKN European Muaythai champion, currently competing in K-1. He made his K-1 debut in 2007 at K-1 Fighting Network Romania 2007. He begun his career in 1994. After just 4 months of training he wins the national title of Romania in semi-contact, light-contact, full-contact kickboxing and thai boxing. Next year, he repeats the same performance.

"The Savage Samurai" made his debut at the World Championships in 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand. Daniel won all his matches by knockout before the semifinal where he lost against Alexey Ignashov by one round (the only match of the Belarusian won by decision and not KO). Ghiţă's career continued with outstanding performances: European champion in Germany in 2000, bronze medal at the World Muay Thai Championships from Thailand 2001 and European vice-champion in Portugal in 2002. In 2003, he recorded the fastest KO at the World Muay Thai Championships from Thailand, 30 seconds against an Australian fighter.

In 2004, Daniel entered the Local Kombat fighting circuit from Romania. His good record there gave him the opportunity to fight also in the K-1 fighting circuit. His K-1 debut was in 2007 at K-1 Fighting Network Romania 2007 against Nobu Hayashi. On August 11, 2009 Ghiţă broke Peter Aerts' record of fastest K-1 tournament win by defeating all three of his opponents in total of 5 minutes and 15 seconds. Peter Aerts' record at the time was 6:43 and stood for 10 years before Ghiţă's milestone, however, Aerts' record was set at a K-1 Grand Prix Final Round, whereas Ghiţă's record was set in a qualifying GP. Ghiţă is known for his strong low kicks, with which he has knocked out many of his opponents.

Aside from kickboxing, from 2001 to 2008, Ghiţă was a secret service agent assigned to protect the president of Romania.

Biographic infos from Wikipedia, images from Muaythai.sg.