Andy Ristie has been announced as a late and surprise addition to the GLORY 19 Superfight Series card taking place Friday, February 6 in Virginia, USA.
“The Machine” is the lightweight division’s top contender at present, being 3-1 in his last four outings for GLORY and having scored massive KO’s in each of those wins (Giorgio Petrosyan, Robin van Roosmalen and Ky Hollenbeck respectively.)
His opponent for the February 6 fight will be Australia’s “Stone Cold” Steve Moxon, himself no stranger to putting people’s lights out. Moxon was recently featured in Spike TV’s “Top 20 GLORY KO’s” highlight show and is coming off a KO win over Aikpracha Meeyathonin in China earlier this month.
Usually you would expect to see a fight like this – which is basically as sure a bet to end in a knockout as any match you could make in kickboxing right now – to form part of the televised SPIKE TV offering, co-headlining alongside the main event and the four-man tournament.
GLORY frames the ‘Superfight Series’ not as an undercard/prelims to its numbered events but as a separate television product in its own right. The organization says that more than thirty nations currently get a live or tape-delayed television broadcast. The USA is not one of them – viewers there watch the fights a week or so later when they are released for free via the GLORY YouTube channel.
However, the recent GLORY 18 Superfight Series card was not released for a long time, well outside the usual frame. GLORY sources said that this was because negotiations were underway in the US with a “major, national” television broadcaster which was considering airing the package.
That didn’t happen, but in a recent conversation I had with the GLORY CEO Jon Franklin (full interview text coming this week) he said that he is “extremely confident” that a deal “for a live or tape-delayed broadcast of the GLORY 19 Superfight Series fights” to be in place “by the time the event is taking place”.
While there are no guarantees until things are signed, it would obviously be very good both for GLORY and for US kickboxing fans if the Superfight Series can get a national TV deal. Ristie vs. Moxon makes sense as a headline act in that context. It also means Ristie is out of a rumored fight for the Kunlun organization in China. His sole recent loss was for the vacant belt when Davit Kiria staged an unreal comeback to steal victory in the final round of their GLORY 14 contest in March.
Watch this space for more news on any TV deal. Stay tuned for more GLORY news tomorrow, Tuesday, when details of GLORY 20 are expected to be announced. Sources say it will be a non-US card, early April and likely to feature a certain UFC veteran…
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