In the tournament quarter finals he faced Shane Chapman from New Zealand and won the evenly fought battle by a single point on the three judges' cards to take a unanimous decision.

Kraus defeated both of his opponents by stoppage en route to the final but was unable to retain his title, losing to Masato by knockout at 2:26 of the second round.

The following year, Albert Kraus would once more take part in the K-1 World MAX 2005 Championship defeating John Wayne Parr in the quarter-finals only to lose to Thai fighter Buakaw Por.

2007 started badly for Albert as he lost two straight fights, including a shock decision loss to little known Japanese fighter Tatsuji.

He again tasted defeat at the K-1 World MAX 2010 quarter final stage to the reigning champion Giorgio Petrosyan who would go on to win the tournament.

He knocked out Ekapop Sor Klinmee in round 1 at Fighterzone Kickboxing World Series MAX in Singapore on February 25, 2012.

He was drawn against 18-year-old Zhang Zhao Yu in the quarter-finals, and was able to wear the youngster down and stop him in the third round with a series of body punches.

In the semis, he forced two first-round referee counts on Wang Wei Hao, who was also deducted a point for using a Sanshou-style takedown on Kraus.

Behind heavily on the scorecards, Wang's corner stopped him from continuing at the end of round one and Kraus marched into the finals to face Dong Wen Fei.

Kraus dropped Dong three times before finishing him off with a high kick in round two to win the tournament and $100,000 prize money.

[20] Kraus rematched Zheng Zhaoyu at Kunlun 5 in Chengdu, China on June 1, 2014, and defeated him once again, knocking him out with a second round knee.