Details on the HDNet Partnership with It's Showtime

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/5/17/2175157/details-on-the-hdnet-partnership-with-its-showtime
Late last week, HDNet announced an exciting new partnership with It's Showtime.
Now, we have some more details on these broadcasts, and it's all
exciting news for fans of the stand-up game. First up, here are the
details, courtesy of HDNet:

HDNet announces a long term deal with "It's Showtime," Europe's
leading kickboxing promotion provided by Fighting Spirit, the
international fight sport programming distributor... In 2011, the
promotion will present ten events for HDNet from venues across Europe.

We spoke to HDNet Fights CEO Andrew Simon to get a bit more clarification, and he was able to offer us the following details:

• Their goal is to "cover all It's Showtime events for years to come," hopefully live at some point.
  
• Michael "The Voice" Schiavello will be providing commentary for the
  events. HDNet is still trying to decide who The Voice's partner will
  be, and Simon encourages fans to send him suggestions on who they want
  to see via twitter @andrewhdnet.
  
• This deal is not impacted in any way by the lack of K-1 programming at the moment. If K-1 begins producing shows again, they will remain a part of HDNet Fights as well.
  

Again, for anyone who is a fan of kickboxing and stand-up action (and
has access to HDNet) this couldn't be better news. Since K-1's
demise/hibernation, It's Showtime has become the top kickboxing
organization in the world. They are routinely putting on strong events
featuring top 25 fighters, and they are doing so in an ever expanding
number of markets. Over the past year, I've spoken to It's Showtime CEO
Simon Rutz about the prospect of him bringing a show to the United
States - an idea he is open to if there is a suitable market here. The
shows being broadcast on HDNet is a great step towards creating that
market and increasing interest in kickboxing here in the US.
The first It's Showtime event on HDNet will air this Friday, May 20,
at 11:00 p.m. It will be a broadcast of last weekend's event from Lyon,
France, which featured Badr Hari, Tyrone Spong, Giorgio Petrosyan,
and more. If you missed the show, it was a fun, action-packed event
with a lot of good KO's. Add in commentary from The Voice and HDNet
production values, and this is a must watch and a great way to intriduce
yourself to It's Showtime. The company has 3 more events coming up in
the next month, including a smaller show in Amsterdam this weekend -
keep an eye on HDNet to see when those get added to the schedule.