GLORY Kickboxing have increased the stakes for their GLORY 43 SuperFight Series headline bout as Saulo Cavalari and Pavel Zhuravlev now vie for the interim light-heavyweight championship.
The winner of the five-round contest in New York City will meet current champion Artem Vakhitov to unify the titles.
Cavalari; who is a former champion himself, and Zhuravlev will headline the UFC Fight Pass portion of the event from The Theater at Madison Square Garden on Friday, July 14.
The event serves as GLORY’s return to New York, following their last apperance here in November 2013 with GLORY 12.
They will be working locally with promoter Lou Neglia and with Justin Blair’s Friday Night Fights.
The Brazilian Cavalari (60-5, 49 KO) will be looking to book himself on a path back to the gold, but No.2 ranked light-heavyweight Zhuravlev (70-11, 26 KO) proves a difficult challenge, following his flash finish of Zinedine Hameur-Lain at GLORY 35 in Nice.
GLORY have yet to confirm the official date of the expected unification bout.
Cavalari has in fact fought Vakhitov three times prior, losing the last two exchanges. The Brazilian lost the light-heavyweight title to the Ukrainian in their March 2016 clash in Paris.
“With what is sure to be an incredible fight between two top-three light heavyweights [in Cavalari and Zhuravlev], we wanted to create stakes fitting of their ranking and the prestige of Madison Square Garden,” said GLORY Matchmaker and Managing Director Sports Cor Hemmers. “Our champion Vakhitov injured his hand following GLORY 38 Chicago and is working hard toward returning later this year. In the meantime, Cavalari or Zhuravlev will be established as interim champion.”
The GLORY 43 main card will feature a 4-man featherweight contender tournament.
The full six-fight card for GLORY 43 SuperFight Series can be found below:
GLORY 43 SuperFight Series
Interim Light Heavyweight Title Headline Bout: Pavel Zhuravlev vs. Saulo Cavalari
Featherweight Bout: Arthur Sorsor vs. Bailey Sugden
Middleweight Bout: Ariel Sepulveda vs. Joe Taylor
Super Bantamweight Bout: Anissa Meksen vs. Jady Menezes
Lightweight Bout: Itay Gershon vs. Rafal Dudek
Featherweight Bout: Mo Abdurahman vs. Chenchen Li
GLORY 43 SuperFight Series streams live and exclusively on UFC FIGHT PASS at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT on Friday, July 14.
