Name: Daniel Ghiță
Birth date: 22nd of April, 1981, Bucharest, Romania
Nationality: Romanian
Status: Legend
Style: Kickboxing/Muay Thai
Daniel Ghiță was the greatest Romanian kickboxer ever and one of the greatest kickboxers ever. He was born on 22nd of April, 1981 in the capital of Romania, Bucharest.
Debut: Daniel Ghiță started his professional kickboxing career in 2004 by beating Nikola Jovanović from Croatia in the second round by TKO at Local Kombat 4 in Brașov, Romania .
Style: Technical and powerful fighter, with devastating left hooks and outside lowkicks and with a huge technical arsenal into the kicking department, having a ton of KO’s via middle kicks and high kicks.
Short history of his career:
His first big win came against the French fighter Freddy Kemayo, at Local Kombat 29 in Arad, Romania, when he defeated Freddy via a devastating left hook to the chin in the second round of their fight.
After this great fight, there came 2 back to back losses, in the same year, as he was defeated by Dzevad Poturak and Roman Kleibl.
The biggest achievement of his still young career came when he won 3 fights in one night at the K-1 World Grand Prix Final 16 Qualifying GP tournament final in Tokyo, Japan. He knocked out, first, John Love in the first round via his signature left hook in the quarterfinal. Then he proceed to beat in the semifinal via his also trademark outside lowkick the Japanese fighter Yuki Niimura, also in the first round. And in the final he defeated the future Superkombat World Champion, the Ukrainian fighter from Mike’s Gym, Sergei Lascenko (RIP) via devastating lowkicks. These fights not only meant a huge trophy for the young Daniel Ghiță, but also an amazing record, as he broke the old record of Peter Aerts, with the fastest time ever to win a K1 Heavyweight tournament.
In the same year, 2009, he had his first fight with the legendary Dutch giant Semmy Schilt. Even though he had some good moments during this fight, he wobbled Semmy with a jab at some point and hit him also with a strong left high kick, the Dutch giant put him twice on the canvas to secure a unanimous decision win which made him to advance into the next round of the tournament, tournament which he eventually won by defeating the legendary Badr Hari via TKO in the first round.
Daniel Ghiță became the first Romanian to ever qualify into a final 8 K1 Heavyweight Tournament by defeating the Bonecrusher, Errol Zimmerman at Seoul in 2010. After a balanced first round, where both fighters had their moments, Ghiță manages to catch Errol with a solid right hook which wobbled the native of Curaçao and then followed up with a series of devastating straights and hooks that sent Errol into the shadow realm.
He lost, next, his quarterfinal fight of the K1 tournament against the Turkish fighter Gokhan Saki.
The biggest achievement of his career came in 2012, when he won the It’s Showtime Heavyweight Championship and became the number 1 Heavyweight in the world by defeating the Egyptian fighter Hesdy Gerges via a devastating left hook!
In 2012 he took part in a tournament held by Glory Kickboxing, where you had to win 4 fights in one night to win the entire tournament. The tournament took place Tokyo where Ghiță defeated Jhonata Diniz, Mourad Bouzidi and the huge Jamal Ben Saddik (he defeated the Moroccan Goliath, who stood 2.05m and about 128 kilograms in just 25 seconds via a devastating left middle kick). He lost the final fight against Semmy Schilt via a left high kick in the first round.
After the last fight against Semmy Schilt, he lost again against the Turkish fighter Gokhan Saki at Glory 6 Istanbul by TKO in the second round.
After that he beat Errol Zimmerman again, this time in the first round, via left hook, in between his 2 fights with the legendary Rico Verhoeven, which defeated Ghiță in those 2 fights by unanimous decision, first time for the Glory Heavyweight Tournament Championship and second time for the Glory Heavyweight Championship.
Ghiță retired from kickboxing in 2014 for 4 years, after the last fight against Rico Verhoeven and came back for 2 more fights, one in 2018, against the Bosnian fighter Dzevad Poturak, whom he defeated via lowkicks and the second in 2019 against Petr Vondracek, whom he defeated by TKO in the first round.
His greatest wins: Jamal Ben Saddik, Errol Zimmerman (X2), Sergei Lascenko (X2), Sergei Kharitonov, Dzevad Poturak (X2), Brian Douwes, Freddy Kemayo, Anderson Silva, Hesdy Gerges.
His most notable win was Hesdy Gerges, whom he beat for the number 1 spot in the world at Heavyweight.
Great fighters he never fought: Peter Aerts, Badr Hari, Remy Bonjasky, Jerome Le Banner, Ernesto Hoost, Alistair Overeem, Tyrone Spong.
Conclusion: Technical fighter with unprecedented combination of precision and power in the martial arts world, which led him to be number 1 in the world at a certain point in time and one of the greatest kickboxers ever. Through his devastating KOs, he earned the reputation of “The Savage Samurai”.
