Daniel Ghiță

"The Savage Samurai" made his debut in the World Muay Thai Championships in 1999 in Bangkok, Thailand. Daniel won all his matches by knockout before the semifinal, where he lost against Alexey Ignashov by one round (the only match the Belarusian won by decision and not KO).

Ghiță's career continued with success: he won the European Muay Thai champion in Germany in 2000, bronze medal at the World Muay Thai Championships in Thailand in 2001 and European Muay Thai runner-up in Portugal in 2002. In 2003, he recorded the fastest KO at the World Muay Thai Championships in Thailand, 30 seconds against an Australian fighter.

In 2004, Ghiță entered the Local Kombat fighting circuit in Romania. His good record there gave him the opportunity to fight also in the K-1 fighting circuit. His K-1 debut was in 2007 at K-1 Fighting Network Romania 2007 against Nobu Hayashi.[24]

On 11 August 2009 Ghiță broke Peter Aerts' record of fastest K-1 tournament win by defeating all three of his opponents in a total of 5 minutes and 15 seconds. Peter Aerts' record at that time was 6:43 and stood for 10 years before Ghiță's milestone, however, Aerts' record was set at a K-1 Grand Prix Final Round, whereas Ghiță's record was set in a qualifying GP.[25]

In October 2010, Daniel Ghiță became the first Romanian fighter to qualify for the K-1 World Grand Prix Final in Tokyo, defeating Errol Zimmerman by KO in the last qualifying tournament in Seoul. At the tournament he fought Gokhan Saki in the quarterfinals. He lost the fight by decision after an extra round.

On 6 March 2011 Daniel Ghiță faced the Chakuriki fighter Hesdy Gerges and the current It's Showtime Heavyweight champion in Amsterdam. Ghiță was a slight underdog as Gerges almost beat Semmy Schilt the previous year and gave Badr Hari trouble in their fight. Though from the first round Ghiță scored effective shots, until the second round where a knee that skimmed his groin was ruled wrongly an 8 count. He lost the fight by unanimous decision a fight that many people thought Ghiță won.

Ghiță was scheduled to face Polish-Australian fighter Paul Slowinski at the It's Showtime 2011 Lyon, but his opponent pulled out and was replaced by Fikri Ameziane. Expectedly, Ghiță beat his opponent in the first round.

On 28 January 2012 at It's Showtime in Leeuwarden, Ghiță rematched Hesdy Gerges for the It's Showtime Heavyweight World title. After backing up Gerges to the neutral corner in the first round he knocked Hesdy out with a left hook and won his biggest world title to date in the process.[26]

On 10 March 2012, it was Sergei Lascenko's turn to be defeated by the Savage Samurai via third-round TKO (head kick) at Mirko Filipović's Final Fight in Zagreb, Croatia.[27]

On 12 May the Romanian beat Brian Douwes at It's Showtime 56 in the second round (2:16) by KO with a single counter left hook. His punch sent the Dutchman to the canvas thus adding another KO win to his record.[28]

At the It's Showtime 2012 Brussels, he scored his 7th straight win by KO with a 2nd round liver kick of his Bosnian opponent Dževad Poturak.[29] In his previous fight at the K-1 World Grand Prix in Madrid, Ghiță fought Wendell Roche until his corner threw in the towel in round two.[30]

Although he was expected to fight in the 2012 K-1 World Grand Prix, Daniel was left out of the tournament.

Ghiță then signed with rival kickboxing promotion, Glory.[31][32]

He was set to face Fabiano Cyclone in the first round of the 2012 Glory Heavyweight Grand Slam at Glory 4: Tokyo - 2012 Heavyweight Grand Slam in Saitama, Japan on 31 December 2012.[33] However, Cyclone pulled out of the bout and was replaced by his fellow countryman Jhonata Diniz.[34] He defeated Diniz by unanimous decision after two, two-minute rounds due to the tournament's "best of three" format and advanced to the quarter-finals to face Mourad Bouzidi. After a close opening round, Ghiță stopped Bouzidi in the second round with a kick which injured his arm. In the semifinals, he came up against Jamal Ben Saddik, and dispatched of him within seconds, with a single kick to the body. An anticipated rematch with Semmy Schilt awaited him in the final, and, after a slow start to the three-minute first round, the Dutchman sent Ghiță to the canvas with a left high kick. Despite seemingly recovering from the blow, referee Joop Ubeda called a halt to the contest, giving Schilt the TKO win.[33][35][36] He received a $100,000 check as the runner up on the tournament.[37]

Ghiță rematched Gökhan Saki at Glory 6: Istanbul in Istanbul, Turkey on 6 April 2013 in a #1 contender's bout for the Glory Heavyweight Championship held by Semmy Schilt.[38] The fight started out a little rough, as Saki caught a kick from the Romanian. He then backed Ghiță up and threw him to the mat with an illegal sweep according to the Glory rules. Ghiță landed hard, looking to have suffered an arm injury. Referee Joop Ubeda wrongly counted it as a down as Ghiță took a while to get to his feet.[39] Even though injured, round two saw again a more consistent Ghiță but midway through the round, the Turk began landing heavy punches on him, dropping the Romanian thrice to take a win via TKO after the referee stepped in, calling the fight.[40][41]

He halted his two-fight losing streak with a first-round knockout of Brice Guidon at Glory 9: New York - 2013 95kg Slam in New York City, New York, USA on 22 June 2013.[42] He hurt Guidon with kicks and punches to the body, forcing him into the corner. As the Frenchman covered up, Ghiță ended the fight with a left hook when Guidon tried to punch his way out.[43][44][45][46]

In the semi-finals of Glory 11: Chicago - Heavyweight World Championship Tournament in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States in October 2013,[47][48][49] Ghiță stopped Anderson "Braddock" Silva with a first round body kick. Meeting Rico Verhoeven in the final, he suffered a unanimous decision defeat.[50][51]

He rematched Errol Zimmerman at Glory 13: Tokyo - Welterweight World Championship Tournament in Tokyo, Japan on 21 December 2013 and knocked Zimmerman out for the second time, hurting him just seconds into the match and keeping up the pressure before putting him away with his left hook at the 0:35 mark of round one.[52][53][54][55]

He rematched Rico Verhoeven in a bout for the vacant Glory Heavyweight (+95 kg/209 lb) Championship at Glory 17: Los Angeles in Inglewood, California, US on 21 June 2014, losing a unanimous decision.[56][57][58]

Ghiță returned to the ring at 2017 World Wushu Championships winning the bronze medal after semifinal's defeat on points to the 5-time world champion Hamid Reza Gholipour of Iran.[59]

On 29 October 2018, he made his kickboxing return at Colosseum Tournament IX at the BT Arena in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.[60] Ghiță defeated Dževad Poturak in the first round, after Poturak's corner threw in the towel in the first round.[61] Poturak later revealed that his quadriceps muscle was torn during the fight.[62]

He was scheduled to fight Petr Vondráček during Colosseum Tournament 11.[63] Ghiță won the fight in the first round by a left hook KO.[64]