Nicholas Pettas
| Nicholas Pettas | |
|---|---|
Pettas at K-1 Turkey 07
|
|
| Born |
January 23, 1973 Mykonos, Greece |
| Other names | The Blue-Eyed Samurai |
| Nationality |
 Greek Danish
|
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) |
| Weight | 98 kg (216 lb; 15.4 st) |
| Division | Heavyweight |
| Style | Kyokushin Karate |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Fighting out of | Tokyo, Japan |
| Team | Team Spirit AE |
| Rank | Black belt in Kyokushin |
| Years active | 1991–2008 |
| Kickboxing record | |
| Total | 19 |
| Wins | 9 |
| By knockout | 8 |
| Losses | 10 |
| By knockout | 8 |
| Draws | 0 |
| Other information | |
| Occupation | Martial arts instructor, dojo owner, actor |
| Notable students | Koichi Watanabe |
| Website | http://www.nicholaspettas.com/ |
Nicholas Pettas (born January 23, 1973, in Mykonos) is a Greek-Danish karateka, former heavyweight kickboxer and actor, who fought out of Team Sprit AE in Tokyo, Japan. Pettas mainly competed in the promotion K-1 between 1998 and 2007, and was the winner of the K-1 Japan Grand Prix 2001.
Although an undersized heavyweight, Pettas is known for his powerful low kicks and holds notable victories over Yusuke Fujimoto, Nobu Hayashi, Musashi, Gökhan Saki and Peter Varga.
Pettas was born in Mykonos, Greece to a Greek father and Danish mother. Following the death of his father, he moved to Denmark with his mother at the age of three.
After being beaten up in a street fight when he was fourteen, he decided to join a karate school to learn to defend himself. Not knowing which styles there were, he was introduced to Kyokushin by Michael Mattheson, a friend of his brother Tony. He found himself a new following and needed no more schooling, and so at the age of eighteen decided to leave high school in order to save up money to go to Japan and study with Masutatsu Oyama, the founder of Kyokushin. After getting permission to join the uchi-deshi program, a live-in training of 1000 days, he moved to Japan from Denmark at the age of eighteen. At the age of twenty-one, he completed the vigorous training course to become the second non-Japanese ever to finalize the program (the first being Judd Reid). He was last uchi-deshi of Master Oyama, who died soon after Pettas' graduation.
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