Cedric Doumbé has managed to simultaneously shake up the welterweight division and bring its upper end together in unison. Shaken-up, because he came from nowhere to beat some top names and take the belt. United, because every one of the top contenders hates him in a very real way.
Doumbé's genius is to be found outside the ring as much as in it. His fight begins weeks or even months out and starts with him taunting his opponent via social media and the news pages. In a sport where mutual expressions of respect are the pre-fight norm, his outrageous trolling has made his rivals furious.
Fury is exactly what he wants from them. An angry fighter is an emotional fighter. Emotions cloud the intellect and an angry fighter will charge forwards without thinking, walking into the traps set by Doumbé or swinging heavily for him in a way that makes them predictable and thus avoidable.
Kongolo fell into the trap completely, as did Nieky Holzken at GLORY COLLISION in December when he lost the belt to Doumbé. On both occasions he was able to so infuriate them in the lead-up to the fight that he was able to almost read their minds once the fight actually started.
Where Doumbé also excels is in the speed of his reflexes and the ability to read what is coming at him. Knowing that his enraged opponent will be throwing full-power means means knowing they will be fully committed to their strikes and unable to pull them back.
Doumbé ducks and sidesteps around his opponent output and uses the temporary confusion to find openings for his own blows. At its peak, for the opponent it is like fighting a ghost. One moment he is front of you and surely wide open, the next instant he is simply not there, and a moment after that he is hitting you from somewhere to the side of you and you have no idea how he got there. And then when you turn to face him he is gone again, popping up on the other side of you.
Kongolo's best moments in the five rounds were when Doumbé consented to play the straight kickboxing game and stand in front of him exchanging combinations. On some occasions there was genuine threat to Doumbé but for the most part he seemed to be doing it to prove he could beat Kongolo at his own game.
The rest of the time, Doumbé was calling the shots and was in complete control and putting on a masterwork of distance, timing and movement. He was also able to show power of his own, with a head-kick in the second round staggering Kongolo and making it look like an early finish may be on the cards.
Much of the bout was a Doumbé highlight reel. His evasion of two Kongolo spin-kick attempts late in the fight was particularly memorable. Exploding out of nowhere, Kongolo threw a spinning heel-kick towards Doumbe's head and Doumbé bent his knees and dipped down a little to let it sail harmlessly over his head.
That was impressive enough, but the masterpiece came a moment later. Kongolo threw another spin-kick but this time aiming for the body, thinking that Doumbé would again duck down to evade a head kick. It didn't happen; Doumbé did indeed duck down a second time, but this time he went twice as low. The kick sailed harmlessly over his head.
It served as an illustration of the fight itself. Kongolo's attempted deception was clever enough in its own right, only that he happened to facing a fighter whose entire style is based around trickery and who thus knows every trick in the book.
After five rounds, the fight went to the judges and the decision was a foregone conclusion. Doumbé's dominance of the fight was clear, even though he took incredible risks at times, and they returned a unanimous decision win.
The question now is who will face him next. Holzken wants a rematch and so too does Murthel Groenhart, who lost to Doumbé at GLORY 28 PARIS but who remains a top contender. Both of them hate Doumbé passionately and both want to put him back in his place - but if that's how they are thinking, perhaps it is Doumbé who already has them right where he wants them.
