GLORY 19 marked a fitting return for the premier kickboxing promotion as Nieky Holzken reigned supreme in the welterweight contender tournament. Rico Verhoeven retained his heavyweight belt when Errol Zimmerman was unable to continue through injury. All the action from the Hampton Colosseum in Hampton, Virginia rounding off a jam packed night of straight-up action.
In what started out as a promising fight, Verhoeven beat Zimmerman, who was forced out of the fight in the second round with a knee injury. Zimmerman went in all guns blazing, but Verhoeven fired back immediately with some ferocious left and right punches, including a right hand that seemingly hurt the challenger, but was not ruled a knockdown. Verhoeven looked more aggressive than he has in a long time, pushing the pace for the majority of the first. It was in the second when Zimmerman went for a spinning back kick, but looked to tear a ligament in his knee. Hopefully it was just a pop and not a tear, but a bad injury for Zimmerman, who had moment of promise in the fight.
Elsewhere in the welterweight tournament, Raymond Daniels advanced to the welterweight tournament final at GLORY 19 with a flashy performance over Jonatan Oliviera, knocking the Brazilian down three times (tournament rule) with two spinning heel kicks, and a spinning back kick. An efficiently superb showing from the karate expert.
Holzken’s path to the GLORY 19 final was a tough three round decision win over Alexander Stetsurenko. Holzken looked to damage his opponent more, but Stetsurenko remained vertical throughout. The Russian had a good second round, but Holzken did enough with ace flurries and inside low kicks his key to victory.
Holzken put on a disciplined masterpiece against Daniels to win the welterweight contender tournament. Holzken would drop Daniels with a straight right, left body hook combination in round one. A barrage of strikes in the corner, and a big straight knee saw “The Real Deal” drop two more times in the second. In the final round, it looked that Daniels could miraculously rally, with a spinning back kick dropping Holzken, followed by a series of nice shots. However, once the Dutchman pushed Daniels back into the corner, a big knee and right hand (fourth knockdown) definitively set up the rematch with “Bazooka Joe.”
Multi-sport middleweight Joe Schilling made his return to the GLORY ring against Robert Thomas, in a drawn out victory. The “187” fighter immediately applied the pressure on Thomas, with some stiff combinations, constantly using the upper cut and right kick combination. Thomas landed a few good shots, but the whole fight was pretty much all for the Los Angles based fighter. Schilling managed to drop Thomas in the third with a spinning back fist followed by a hard right, but he was still unable to put the Canadian away, having to stay content with a points win.
Elsewhere, In a special 90kg feature bout at GLORY 19, the United States Air Force’s Cedric Smith defeated the U.S. Navy’s James Hurley with a second round TKO, referee stoppage. Smith scored two right head kick knock down to pick up the win.
You can read the entire GLORY 19 results right here.
