Rob van Heijst is the undisputed Dutch combat champion, Joe Showers wins the inaugural TurboFest Fight Night - Jan 11, 2017

After winning the NJF 2016 Fight Night last year, Rob van Heijst proved he is the best Dutch combat player by winning the Dutch Juggling Championships 2017 combat tournament. In the final he beat Dave Leahy for the first time in 5 attempts, a rivalry going back to 2014.

Rob earned himself 250 rankings points, enough to climb two places in the FNC 52 Week Rankings to fourth overall.

Bas Van de Kerkhof had his best ever Fight Night result, beating Jordy Sanchez in the third place match. 14 jugglers entered the tournament in total.

Over in Canada, TurboFest hosted its first ever Fight Night, and for all 24 jugglers who entered it was also their first ever Fight Night. 12 made it into the knockout rounds, but not top qualifier Rafi Benjamin. An injury in the volleyclub tournament meant Chase Henson took the top seed.

Things didn't go according to plan for Chase, as he could only manage one knockout match win, ending up in fourth place after losing to Trevor Pearson in the third place match.

Brian Koening was seeded second and backed that up by coming second overall. He was beaten 5-2 in the final by fifth seed Joe Showers.

Joe earned himself 500 rankings points for winning the first National 500 tournament of the year. This puts him into first place in the 2017 Race Rankings, though as it's only the second week of January, he's got a long road ahead to stay there!

Both tournaments were live streamed, and you can watch all the action again by checking out the tournaments' media pages: http://fightnightcombat.com/tournament-Dutch-Juggling-Championships-2017-media.html

Thanks to Melissa Staugaard and Leanne Staugaard for running the Dutch tournament and to Benoit Duinat for organising the TurboFest Fight Night (despite being injured in the qualifications and missing the finals).

The next scheduled Fight Night at SpinFest down in Melbourne, Australia. See all other upcoming tournaments in 2017 over at the FightNightCombat.com website: http://fightnightcombat.com/tournament-calendar-2017.html

Upcoming tournaments in Las Vegas and Quebec - Dec 15, 2016

What do Quebec and Las Vegas have in common? No, not Cirque du Soleil, but combat juggling!

Both the WJF/SkillCon and TurboFest are hosting one-on-one combat tournaments, with Fight Night Combat ranking points on the line. Both tournaments have a provisional tournament level of 500 points.

Combat has been a fixture at the World Juggling Federation events for years now, with Josh Horton winning at the last solo tournament in 2014. He'll be returning to SkillCon this coming week to defend his title, but will face stiff competition from current world number 4 Julius Preu.

After many years of legendary late night melee combat sessions, TurboFest is hosting the first ever Fight Night in Canada. The convention begins on January 5th, with qualifications late night on Friday 6th January.

Both tournaments are part of the 2017 Fight Night Combat season, along with tournaments that have already taken place in Ireland, Leeds, and Bratislava.

See the full (provisional) tournament calendar for 2017, currently with 54 tournaments listed, here: http://fightnightcombat.com/tournament-calendar-2017.html