Dennis Alexio vs. Stan Longinidis

Dennis Alexio was the golden boy of American kickboxing, having lost only one bout in his career (a decision to Don "The Dragon" Wilson at light heavyweight in 1984) and co-starred in the film Kickboxer with Jean-Claude Van Damme. [1] The undisputed World Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion, he held titles for all the major kickboxing associations such as PKA, IKF, ISKA, KICK and WKA.

Stan Longinidis, meanwhile, was the first Australian to win a world kickboxing title when he took the KICK full contact Super Heavyweight Championship in 1991, and also held the WKA World Junior Heavyweight Championship.

Both men shared a common opponent in future K-1 World Grand Prix winner Branko Cikatić, who had fought the pair earlier that year. Longinidis had defeated Cikatić while Alexio's bout with him ended in a controversial draw. Alexio was dominating the fight and was on the verge of knocking Cikatić out if the controversial ending didn’t occur.

The bout took place on 6 December 1992 at the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre in Melbourne, Australia in front of 8,000 spectators, with the fight set for ten, three-minute rounds.[2] Also, the fight took place under "Oriental rules" which allows leg kicks; Alexio had spent the majority of his career fighting under full contact rules which only allows kicks above the waist and requires foot pads to be worn.

Six seconds into the fight, Longinidis hit Alexio with a left low kick, causing Alexio's fibula and tibia to break. Officially, the fight lasted just fifteen seconds and Longinidis was named the winner via technical knockout.[3][4]

As the bout was the most eagerly anticipated kickboxing super fight at the time and a huge media event in Australia, it was considered a disappointment and an anticlimax. Michael Schiavello called it "the greatest anti-climax in ring sport history".[5] This bout was listed on the Guinness World Records as "the fastest KO in kickboxing world title match".

Alexio and his manager, Bob Wall, disputed the fight and claimed that the fracture was caused by twisting his leg on a depression in the ring floor. Although initially after the fight, Bob Wall had admitted that, "Stan had won with an excellent legal kick." Upon further investigation especially after watching the video before the fight where Alexio was walking around in the ring and he told the officials on camera that there was a hole in the ring and that they needed to fix it before the fight and after the fight they watched the video again and found the hole in the ring which caused Alexio’s leg break and overturned the win for Longinidis to a No-Contest. [6] A rematch between Longinidis and Alexio was discussed but a promoter with enough money was never secured.[7][8]

Although Alexio recovered from the broken leg and went on to fight many more times afterwards. The promoters couldn’t get the fighters together with the money or the cable networks and pay per view to televise the fights with the arrival and popularity of the UFC/MMA. American Kickboxing viewership was on the decline and the television ratings and Pay per view buys weren’t there any longer for the networks to justify those big money fights so they never happened.