New GLORY Welterweight champion Cédric Doumbé is aiming to hold onto his new championship belt longer than Nieky Holzken.
Doumbé executed a fantastic gameplan at GLORY Collision to snatch the title away from Holzken, who has held the belt since August 2015.
The newly crowned French champion upset the odds in Oberhausen by pressuring Holzken, never allowing the Dutch fighter to control the action which has been a huge part of his previous success.
“I was thinking that it was gonna be very difficult to beat him but I did it,” explained Doumbé. “My coach and I are very proud because we did a lot of work to prepare a good gameplan, so we did it.”
The 24-year-old – who defeated Holzken’s rival Murthel Groenhart to earn the title shot – felt he won over the pro-Holzken crowd following his decision victory, something which “DOUMCED” was ‘very happy’ about.
“During my entrance everybody was against me, maybe I had two or three people with me but everybody was against me. And after the fight, during the decision I heard that everybody was with me so when you take the heart of the public you’ve already won the fight, so I’m very happy for that.”
The first French born champion in GLORY history, Doumbé is looking to defend his championship belt more times than his predecessor; a record of three fights, undefeated over the last four years, and earn the moniker as ‘the best’.
“So now, I’m going to keep this belt, I’m going to train hard to defend the belt you know because I don’t want that people think… this guy is lucky, he just escaped he don’t want to fight because some people thought that.
“But now I’m going to defend the belt more long than Nieky and then people are going to confirm that I am the best.”
Doumbé also expressed his intrigue in a rematch with Yoann Kongolo and reacted to the climax of Rico Verhoeven vs. Badr Hari.
Watch the full interview with Andreas Georgiou and Cédric Doumbé above.
