Statistics
Real name	Jérôme Le Banner
Nickname	Hyper Battle Cyborg or Geronimo
Weight	Super heavyweight
Nationality	French
Birth date	December 26, 1972
Birth place	France
Style	Muay Thai
Boxing record
Total fights	62
Wins	49
Wins by KO	39
Losses	10
Draws	2
No contests	1

 

Jérôme Le Banner (born December 26, 1972 in Le Havre ), France) is a French kickboxer and is famous for his bouts in the Japanese kickboxing organization K-1. Le Banner is known for his tremendously aggressive fighting style and his many knockout wins and losses. He is nicknamed both the "Hyper Battle Cyborg" and "Geronimo", and is associated with the Boerboel & Tosa Gym ^{[citation needed]}. He has his own fighting team, the Le Banner Xtream Team .

Biography

Jérôme Le Banner was born Christmas Day 1972 in the French city of Le Havre, in the province of Normandy, approximately 2 hours west of Paris. Le Banner started training in judo at the age of 6, although disagreements led to his discontinuing this sport. At the age of 14 Le Banner became an admirer of Bruce Lee after watching his film Fist of Fury. This led him to take up karate, while trying to incorporate techniques of Jeet Kune Do which he had seen in the film .

Le Banner's training in Jeet Kune Do gave him his southpaw stance, which he has maintained, even though he is right handed. Le Banner has the ability both left and right guards, as in traditional Thai fighting styles where fighters can switch stances even though they favour one side over the other; this allows him to confuse opponents in matches.

Le Banner eventually joined Full Contact boxing competitions, and at the age of 18 he debuted in his first fight in this style. By 20 he held the French title (ISKA federation). Soon after he won the European belt against Stéphane Reveillon, and then the Intercontinental belt in South Africa against Mike Bernardo.

By 1995 Le Banner was asked to join K-1 making an impressive debut , knocking out both Masaaki Satake and Mike Bernardo. Le Banner has become one of K-1's biggest stars, defeating some of the highest profile opponents, and is especially popular in Japan. He got to the final match of the 2002 K-1 Grand Prix, after defeating Musashi in the quarterfinal, and Mark Hunt in the semifinal. Le Banner faced Ernesto Hoost in a close competition which Hoost won after managing to shatter Le Banner's arm with 3 mid-kicks. Le Banner successfully recovered from his injuries, and as of 2006 is still fighting professionally in K-1.

Le Banner has a daughter named Victoria .

Record

Career

• French & European Kickboxing Champion
• I.S.K.A. World Superheavyweight Thaiboxing Champion
• W.K.N. World Thai-boxing Superheavyweight Champion
• K-1 Grand Prix '99 3rd Place
• K-1 Grand Prix '95 Finalist
• K-1 World Grand Prix 2000 (Nagoya) Champion
• K-1 World Grand Prix 2002 Finalist

Trivia

Manager: Olivier Muller.

Commercial Agent: Alan Kermorvan alkermor@msn.com