GLORY heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven isn’t worried about critics who say the fight against Antonio “Bigfoot’ Silva Guangzhou, China, is bad for his legacy.
The fight will feature as the main event of the GLORY 46 SuperFight Series for the promotion’s Chinese debut.
Verhoeven vs. Bigfoot was criticized a lot upon the announcement because Silva hasn’t had one kickboxing bout in his life. Especially because Verhoeven just came off a win over Ismael Lazaar at GLORY 41 in May, who hadn’t fought in GLORY before fighting 25 minutes with the champion.
In the long run, Verhoeven tells MMA Plus he doesn’t see that as a problem: “I don’t know why [it would]. GLORY puts up opponents for me and I’m happy with everybody and anybody. The thing is, everybody wants to try to feel it. But when they’re in the ring, when they’re in front of me, they say ‘Hey, this is a different ball game.’
“It’s the same with Anderson Silva, he wanted to try it, tried it and said ‘This is a different level.’ And this guy fought everybody. He fought Badr, he fought Remy, he fought everybody in the game and said ‘This is a different level of kickboxing I’ve ever seen.’ I think that says something.”
