Former UFC fighter Thiago Silva has signed with GLORY. The Brazilian will make his debut in the kickboxing organisation on December 1 in the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York as the co-feature of GLORY 48, per GLORY press release.
Silva, who’s been training at Mike’s Gym recently, will fight at light-heavyweight, but his opponent is not announced yet.
The Brazilian won nine of twelve UFC bouts between May 2007 and October 2013. Two of those victories were turned into No Contests: one due to a falsified urine sample after UFC 125 and another after Silva failed a drug test after UFC on Fuel TV 6.
Silva was famously fired by the UFC in 2014 after he allegedly threatened his wife at gunpoint outside Pablo Popovitch’s BJJ gym in Florida.
Seven months later he re-signed with the promotion for a short-lived return after the Broward County District Attorney’s office dropped those charges, but the UFC fired him again after new audio and video evidence was posted online.
Silva currently has an MMA bout scheduled against Jose Daniel Toledo Canellas on ACB 74 in Vienna, Austria. This event is scheduled for November 18, two weeks prior to GLORY 48.
GLORY 48 will be headlined by an interim featherweight title bout featuring American contender tournament winner Kevin VanNostrand.
Current champion Robin van Roosmalen suffered a severely bruised eye socket in his last title defence during the main event of GLORY 45 against Serhiy Adamchuk. That injury also forced the Dutchman to cancel his third MMA bout in the main event of FFC 30.
“Pokerface” also fought out his current GLORY contract, which makes him a free agent.
VanNostrand will fight, Abdellah Ezbiri, the winner of the GLORY 47 featherweight tournament.
GLORY’s return to New York will also feature a one-night, four-man middleweight qualifying tournament. The winner will be granted entry into an upcoming middleweight contender tournament.
GLORY veteran Wayne Barrett will fight no. 7-ranked middleweight Robert Thomas out of Canada. In the opposing bracket, American Mike Lemaire fights an unannounced opponent.
Four fights have been announced on for the GLORY 48 SuperFight Series, which will be headlined by a super bantamweight title bout. Champion Tiffany van Soest faces the winner of the contender bout between Anissa Meksen and Funda Alkayiş, who’ll fight each other on the GLORY 47 SuperFight Series.
UFC veteran Chris Camozzi makes his GLORY and kickboxing debut against countryman Kyle Weickhardt, Itay Gershon takes on Justin Houghton and Elvis Gashi, who upset Josh Jauncey on GLORY 43, faces Nate Richardson.
