Saturday night in Copenhagen the GLORY ring will host some really important fights. The main event has the World Welterweight Championship on the line and the centerpiece of the card is a four-man Heavyweight Contender Tournament which will determine the next challenger for world champion Rico Verhoeven.
This event airs live in the US on ESPN 3 at 4pm ET and re-airs 7pm ET on ESPN2. It also airs live in the Netherlands on SPIKE TV NL at 19:30 Amsterdam time. In total it will air live in more than 120 countries – a lot of people are going to see these fights. Let's take a look at the matchmaking
Heavyweight Contender Tournament
Jahfar Wilnis (29-6-1, 8 KO's) was an obvious choice for this Heavyweight Contender Tournament, a lot of people felt like he should have been declared the winner in the last one, back in October. Anderson “Braddock” Silva (39-13-1, 24 KO's) also deserves to be there.
But then we looked at the rankings to fill the rest of the places and it was a bit more tricky. I wasn't impressed with Ben Edwards last time, he didn't seem in great condition to me, and the same with Errol Zimmerman, so I didn't want to select either of those guys. I want to see them in better condition before we bring them back.
Benjamin Adegbuyi also could be included but he has had two fights with Verhoeven now so in the interests of variety we didn't include him in this tournament. One of my first choices actually was Xavier Vigney. He did a better job against Maurice Greene than Silva did, so I felt like he was ready. But he wasn't available, he has a nagging elbow injury.
So then we looked at introducing some new blood. Ismael Londt (36-6-1, 18 KO's) we nearly signed in 2012 but it didn't work out. This time were were able to get a deal together and now he will debut in this tournament. He holds a 2009 win over Rico Verhoeven but he doesn't make a big deal about it because it was so early in Rico's career.
He's a dangerous hard-hitting guy. But this is the biggest opportunity of his career I think. He doesn't have those big wins on his record yet to make him one of the elite guys. I am interested to see what he brings. He says he is really making the most of this chance and that he has trained harder than ever. In the past he's been accused of laziness, relying on his power a little like Zimmerman, but if he is really fit then he can be a big problem for anyone.
Kirill Kornilov (7-1) comes in as a kind of wild card. We were scouting him for a while and normally I would bring him in on a Superfight Series card to test his level and see where he is. But I like what I have seen of him and so I spoke to his team and asked what they would think about entering this contender tournament.
It's true that it may be a little bit early for him to enter a tournament like this but on the other hand this is how fighters can blow up overnight. It's a win-win for him. He isn't expected to win the tournament so there is no pressure on him but if he has some success then right away he pushes his name into the rankings.
On paper the final will probably between Wilnis and Londt but a fight is a fight and that is especially true of heavyweights, they can end a fight in an instant. One punch is all that it takes. Whoever wins will be the next fighter to challenge Rico Verhoeven for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Nieky “The Natural” Holzken (88-11, 46 KO's) vs Yoann Kongolo (61-6, 45 KO's)
World Welterweight Championship
Kongolo is an exciting new fighter, he's had a good showing since he debuted in GLORY last year. Originally Holzken was to face Karim Ghajii at the Paris event but then things changed around, we moved Holzken to this event and Ghajii had a conflicting engagement. That allows Kongolo to step up and take his chance.
He's a powerful fighter and has good boxing skills. He beat a very experienced veteran Karapet Karapetyan in Amsterdam in December so you can definitely say that he is up there at the top end of the welterweight division.
On the other hand, Holzken is a harder fight than Karapetyan and he also has great boxing skills and a lot of finishing ability. His fight against Murthel Groenhart in Amsterdam didn't really show him at his best in my opinion. I think his commitments involved in filming his reality show for Dutch TV really affected his training commitments and distracted him.
This time he doesn't have any of that going on and I think that you will see him much sharper than he was in Amsterdam. Kongolo is powerful and he can knock people out but I think he needs the knockout to win, otherwise probably Nieky knocks him out. They are two good fighters but I think the advantage is with Nieky and I think he has a point he wants to prove.
