The Voice vs Badr Hari

The VOICE vs. series returns with its most intense and powerful show to date. The Voice of HDNet, Michael « The Voice » Schiavello goes one on one with kickboxing legend Badr Hari, in this hour long television event.
t was advertised as scary. It was advertised as a dark interview. Badr Hari is a fighter who seems to have divided the Kickboxing world with either fans hating him or considering him infallible. A look at our own comment sections shows this diversity with some readers requesting we don’t write about the man at all because of his actions in and outside of the ring.

The Voice versus Badr Hari covers a large amount of topics from the light hearted when Hari talks about his beginnings getting into the sport of Kickboxing to the dark when discussing Dynamite!! 2008. Dynamite!! 2008 for those that need a refresher was his loss to Alistair Overeem. It was around this time that Mike’s Gym burned down in Amsterdam and it was just weeks after his disqualification after stomping Remy Bonjasky at the K1 World GP 2008 Final.

One of my favorite moments is when Schiavello shows Hari pictures of UFC champions Anderson Silva and Cain Velasquez. Hari’s reaction is classic and completely genuine. Is the episode as dark and scary as advertised? No. But there are definitely some parts of the interview where you can tell Hari gets extremely tense when responding to certain questions. He is talking to someone he knows and still seems uncomfortable the whole time.

The reality is that this is the best Voice vs to date. While the interviews with Jason Miller, Alistair Overeem, and Wanderlei Silva were extremely entertaining, there wasn’t a real insight into the minds of those fighters. The interviews tended to be extremely lighthearted and there wasn’t any tension between Schiavello and the interviewees. With Badr, the Voice was able to discuss both the good and bad times in his life and get honest answers from the Moroccan fighter.