GLORY is a newcomer to the world of American sports television, having only debuted on SPIKE TV in October last year. Indeed the company is young, period. It’s second birthday was in April this year and to date it has staged 17 events.
The company’s mission is to bring kickboxing to prominence worldwide. Some regions are already on board – kickboxing has a big presence in Europe and Japan – but in America most fight fans are new to the sport, perhaps having previously been vaguely aware of defunct Japanese organization K-1.
Farneti’s background is in venture capitalism. He left the highly-regarded Doughty Hanson company to take on the GLORY project at the behest of his friend and majority GLORY owner Pierre Andurand, a hedge fund manager who specializes in the oil trade.
Disarmingly frank – and very well-spoken for a fight-sport executive – Farneti freely admits that GLORY has been a steep learning curve but says that rumors of the company’s impending demise are greatly exaggerated – apparently four more shows are planned for this year.
(Incidentally, GLORY sources say a Chicago show originally planned for August has been put back to at least September. This is apparently down to due diligence processes underway with new investors. I didn’t have enough to make an article with, as that information was only mentioned as an aside, but if like me you’ve been wondering about the hiatus, at least it explains things – JJ)
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