Exciting news from the Glory front – Glory 19 is now official. The show will take place Friday, December 19 – location is yet to be announced. As always, Glory 19 will air live on Spike TV.
Headlining the show will be a big fight – one many fans have been looking forward to ever since Glory 16. Glory World Heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven (44-9 Overall; 7-1 Glory) makes his first defense of the belt as he takes on Errol Zimmerman (103-11-1 Overall; 4-4 Glory). This fight is a rubber match, as Zimmerman holds a 2012 KO victory over Verhoeven, while Verhoeven evened the score one year later with a decision win at Glory 9. Now, they break the tie.
Verhoeven is undefeated since a loss to Semmy Schilt at Glory 4. In that time, he’s beaten an incredible list of fighters – Zimmerman, Saki, Ghita, Aerts. In his last fight, he took a decision win over Daniel Ghita at the Glory Last Man Standing PPV to become the Glory Heavyweight champion.
Zimmerman is a well travelled veteran who first broke out fighting for K-1 back in 2008. A hard hitting KO machine, Zimmerman has been up and down in his career, but he was focused and on point when he won the Glory 16 Heavyweight contender tournament, knocking out both Ben Edwards and Anderson Silva in a combined 5:20.
Also announced for the show is a Welterweight contender tournament. Semifinals are Nieky Holzken vs. Artur Kyshenko and Raymond Daniels vs. Jonatan Oliveira. There are a lot of interesting facets to this tournament. Holzken makes his return here after a year long absence; in his last fight, he KO’d now champion Joseph Valtellini. Kyshenko’s last Glory fight was a loss, but he also holds a 2011 win over Holzken. On the other side of the bracket, Oliveira is the tournament underdog, as he takes on Raymond Daniels, fresh off his KO of the year victory over Francois Ambang in Denver.
Join Bloody Elbow in the coming weeks for much more on Glory 19.
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