With GLORY 37 in the books and another 17 shows slated for the rest of the year, GLORY has its sight set on taking the world’s biggest kickboxing promotion into new countries in 2017.
GLORY CEO Jon J. Franklin tells MMA Plus that one of the countries GLORY is planning on entering is Canada and the hope is for a show in Toronto, Ont., where the controversial head of the Ontario Athletic Commission, Ken Hayashi, recently stepped down.
“Ultimately we have some regulatory issues to work out in Canada, but I think we are on our way,” Franklin said. “We haven’t seen any big GLORY-rules style kickboxing events there because you have to get everything approved by the commission and we’ve never been up to Canada. We are working on that now with the goal of doing a show in Canada for sure, in the Toronto area.”
Ontario has not yet hired a new head of the Ontario commission to fill the void left by Hayashi. Franklin isn’t quite sure if that will slow down GLORY’s efforts to get approved for a kickboxing event, but he is confident in a fight card being approved based on the promotion having already put on events in different parts of the globe.
“Well, we will see if that is actually a hold-up or not,” said Franklin. “We’ve made the case that are rules are accepted globally. We’ve been to the hardest jurisdictions such as New York, Los Angeles, Japan. We fight all over the world and GLORY rules have proven to be safe and positive for the sport so it only makes sense for Canada–particularly the Ontario providence in particular to join with the rest of the world and say, ‘hey this is a great thing for our sporting environment here’.”
GLORY likes to have its fighters “fight in their own countries,” Franklin said. So, expect a Canadian to be the headliner should the Ontario commission approve GLORY for an event. When asked if the main event would feature Canadian Simon Marcus–who is currently in contract negotiations for his next fight–and Jason Wilnis, in a fight for the GLORY middleweight title, Franklin indicated that fight could be a possibility, but it really depends on timing.”
“It depends on the dates,” he said. “Cor Hemmers and the talent ops team have got to look at the progression and see where everyone stands and make decisions. It’s a tough division [right now].”
Marcus, of course, lost the title at GLORY 33 to current champion, Jason Wilnis, who just defeated Israel Adesanya at GLORY 37, winning the contest by a controversial unanimous decision. So, we could end up seeing a rematch with either Wilnis and Adesanya, or Wilnis and Marcus.
“You never know,” said Franklin on the potential next middleweight title fight. “We’ve got to sort it all out between all the different factors at play. It’s a good problem to have. In the middleweight division there is more an more stuff happening all the time. All the sudden you have Warren Thompson looking good. Eventually we will have the comeback of Dustin Jacoby. There is a lot of action in the middleweight division right now.”
Whatever the main event ends up being or what Canadian fighter is on the bill, Franklin will be thrilled to put on a GLORY event where a big portion of North American talent reside.
“We are excited to ultimately find the right time to get GLORY into Canada.”
