The big Rico Verhoeven vs. Errol Zimmerman Heavyweight title fight ended not with a bang, but a whimper. In the Glory 19 main event, Verhoeven retained his belt via injury stoppage in the 2nd round when Zimmerman threw a very out of character spinning back kick, throwing out his knee in the process. An injury is always an anti-climactic ending, but this situation was complicated by some bizarre reffing. After Zimmerman went down, referee Al Wichgers counted to 10, and Zimmerman did not make the count. At that point, he brought in the doctor, who, after some time, waved the fight off. It was a bizarre, and thoroughly confusing call, but at least Rico got the proper win.
Particularly unfortunate here is that this came after a great first round that saw both men fired up and landing big shots in some wild exchanges. This was heating up to be an early fight of the year candidate, but it was not to be. Hard to say where Rico goes from here, as Glory needs a new Heavyweight challenger.
The night’s other big winner was Nieky Holzken. The Glory 13 tournament champion returned to the ring after missing all of 2014 due to injury. After a solid, but slightly less confident win over Alexander Stetcurenko in the semifinals, he defeated Raymond Daniels to claim the Glory 19 Welterweight contender tournament crown. The fight with Daniels showed that Holzken is back in fine form, as he dominated the karate stylist, dropping him 4 times en route to a 3rd round TKO win. Next up for Holzken is a rematch with Joseph Valtellini in what will be a huge fight.
For his part, Daniels made it to the finals with a win over Jonatan Oliveira. Daniels used a non-stop barrage of spin kicks to catch Oliveira again and again, scoring a 2nd round TKO.
Rounding out the main card was Joe Schilling, who looked great in his win over Robert Thomas, dominating the fight right from the opening bell. There’s talk of Schilling vs. Artem Levin next, and while that fight makes sense, there is also a Middleweight contender tournament coming up that will provide a new challenger for Levin’s title.
Get the full results below, and be sure to join us on April 3 when Glory returns with Glory 20, headlined by Gabriel Varga vs. Mosab Amrani for the inaugural Featherweight title, plus the Glory return of Pat Barry.
GLORY 19 RESULTS:
Heavyweight Title Fight: Rico Verhoeven def. Errol Zimmerman, KO R2
Welterweight Finals: Nieky Holzken def. Raymond Daniels, KO R3
Middleweight: Joe Schilling def. Robert Thomas, UD
Cedric Smith def. James Hurley, KO R2
Welterweight Semifinal: Nieky Holzken def. Alexander Stetcurenko, UD
Welterweight Semifinal: Raymond Daniels def. Jonatan Oliveira, KO R2
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