Jochen Pfeiffer wins the European Masters 2016 and goes undefeated for the whole year
Congratulations to Jochen Pfeiffer for winning the Fight Night Combat European Masters 2016. He won seven matches in total, all against top 10 opponents, including yet another victory over current number one Luke Burrage in the final. Jochen's win-loss record in 2016 is 18-0.
While Jochen has beaten Luke three times this year, he only took part in four tournaments compared to Luke's eight tournaments, which wasn't enough to overcome Luke's race rankings points lead, and Jochen ends the year second in the 2016 Race Rankings.
However, with his 750 point victory at the European Masters, he is just 14 points behind Luke in the 52 week current rankings, with 2750 points to Luke's 2764. Jochen is assured to become the number one combat player again the next tournament he enters, or in April when Luke loses his points from the BJC 2015.
Luke had to win just three matches to secure the end-of-year number one spot, and did so by going unbeaten in his group stage matches. He earned himself 550 rankings points for his second place finish. Two other players from Luke's group came third and fourth, Markus Utke and Leo Ostenrath, with Markus avenging a loss to Leo in the group stage and edging Leo by 345 rankings points to 340.
Danny Cooper was second in Jochen's group but lost to Markus in his quarter-final. He lost his next two matches in the loser bracket to come eighth, but he finished fifth in terms of points because the loser bracket matches didn't carry any rankings weight and were just played as a fun experiment. Rob van Heijst won two group matches and finished fifth overall, while Jon Peat and Brook Roberts only won one group match each and finished sixth and seventh, both with 100 ranking points.
Jon Peat's main goal of the tournament was not to finish in last place like he did in 2015, and he managed that goal. This year the 9th and 10th place playoff match was held between Alex Leymann and Jan Poolen, neither of whom won any of their group stage matches. Alex beat Jan in straight sets for the 25 bonus rankings points.
Thanks to everyone who helped run the event: Melissa for hosting the live stream, Leanne and Juliane for score keeping and paperwork, Eóin for announcing and refereeing the knockout matches, Carsten for organizing the venue, Luke for technical setup, and anyone else who put in some time to make it a success.
Look out for video highlights in the future, or watch the entire 2 hour 30 minute event again as it was live streamed on Facebook.
Find all the results and details here: http://fightnightcombat.com/tournament-European-Masters-2016.html
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