Kickboxer uses his hands

Winning a World Grand Prix event would be a career-defining moment for most K-1 fighters.

To Patrick Barry, it might not have even been the highlight of his month.

After an impressive second-round knockout of Rickard Nordstand in the quarterfinals, the 28-year old dropped a split decision to Zabit Samedov in the semifinals of the K-1 World Grand Prix at the Bellagio on Saturday night.

While Samedov went on to drop a unanimous decision to Doug Vinney in the finals, Barry will now return home to New Orleans -- to lay carpet.

It's the last step for the fighter and his family on a two-year journey to move back into the home in which he lived his entire life until Hurricane Katrina ravaged the region in August 2005.

"That's going to be one hell of a day," Barry said Thursday as he prepared to compete in the tournament. "All the stress, all the heartache, all the troubles that we've gone through. It will be like Christmas."

Barry and his brother Andrew were among the last group to leave before the storm.

"Once a month for my whole life, there has been a hurricane threat. They'd always say, 'This will be the one.' But they never come. It's like 'The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!" ' So after a while, they say a hurricane is coming and you say, 'Yeah, OK,' " Barry said of the days leading up to Katrina.

The rest of Barry's family already had evacuated the city.

When the brothers found out that Louisiana State, where Andrew was attending school, was canceling classes for the entire week, they decided to take the opportunity to visit Andrew's girlfriend in Pennsylvania.

"We decided to take a road trip, but we were going to do it like barbarians. We weren't going to pack clothes, we weren't going to take showers. Nothing," Patrick Barry recalled.

"We were going for a day, turning around and coming back. We left six hours before, not expecting (the hurricane) to hit. We drove up, hung out, went to sleep and woke up the next day when we were going to head back. We saw the news and the whole (expletive) city was gone."

Because they had taken nothing with them, the brothers and the rest of the family were left with virtually nothing to return to, even if they could make it back to their East New Orleans home.

"We lost our house, our clothes, our photo albums, our memorabilia, everything," Barry said.

The brothers were nomadic over the next few days, living in Patrick's truck on the side of the highway, unable to locate a single family member.

Eventually, Barry landed in Milwaukee, where he was taken into the home and gym of kickboxer and trainer Duke Roufus. Roufus also started a recovery fund for Barry and his family.

After finally tracking down his family, Barry began splitting his time between helping rebuild his life and home in New Orleans and training Milwaukee and Holland, where he worked with superstar fighter Ernesto Hoost.

Barry has never looked at fighting as a distraction from the turmoil in his hometown.

"I never try to put the storm out of my mind," he said. "I purposely dwell on it and keep New Orleans in my heart. I listen to New Orleans music, I wear New Orleans shirts. That place represents what I love and who I am."

Samedov scored a second-round knockout of Esh'Chadar Brown Ton before defeating Barry to advance to the finals.

Vinney did not compete in the quarterfinals, but as the winner of the reserve bout against Mahmoud Fawzy, he was placed in the semifinals when tournament favorite Rick Cheek was injured in his quarterfinal victory and could not continue.

In the semis, Vinney scored a unanimous victory over Alexandre Pitchkounov to advance to the finals.

In superfight action, Ariel Mastov attempted a wide variety of kicks and punches and eventually scored a third-round knockout of Petr Vondracek with a spin kick to the body in the most entertaining bout on the card.

Also, Stefan Leko scored a unanimous decision over "Mighty Mo" Siligia, and Ray Sefo dropped a split decision to Bjorn Bregy, who held a 40-pound and 8-inch height advantage in the fight.

Las Vegan Ardra Hernandez dropped a unanimous decision to Van Do Milnes in a preliminary bout.