Next Friday night, live on Spike TV, Raymond Daniels gets his shot at the Glory Welterweight title as he takes on Nieky Holzken for the vacant belt. Holzken vs. Daniels II is the main event of Glory 23, taking place live in Las Vegas, Friday, August 7 and airing live on Spike.
In anticipation of that fight, here’s a look back at an earlier time Daniels was in a high profile fight. For this, we take you to the glory days of Chuck Norris’s World Combat League. For those unfamiliar, WCL was a team based kickboxing league that was closer to style to karate than the K-1 ruleset you see today in Glory. Daniels is one of the highest profile WCL veterans, and the roster also included the likes of Pat Barry, Uriah Hall, Felice Herrig, and many more.
But arguably the biggest name on the roster (at that time) was a much decorated karate fighter by the name of Stephen Thompson. Yes, the man we know today as top 10 ranked UFC Welterweight Wonderboy Thompson was one of the clear standouts in WCL from the very earliest stages – here you can watch him scoring a perfect head kick KO in one of the company’s first fights.
With both Thompson and Daniels walking in to WCL with much acclaim, and both men doing quite well for themselves in the league, a meeting was inevitable, and would be one of the biggest fights in the company’s brief history. Here it is:
Interestingly, the fight would also be one of WCL’s most controversial. What initially looks like a Daniels KO win was indeed ruled just that, at first. But it was later changed to a No Contest when it was revealed that Thompson tore his ACL in that final flurry (you can see him grab his knee once he hits the canvas). Additionally, you see Daniels use a one handed clinch on Thompson at the end – the rules are not perfectly clear on this, but such a clinch could have been ruled a “penalized action” which contributed to the injury. From this angle, it’s also unclear if the Daniels right hook lands, and if so, how cleanly.
So in the end, the big Daniels vs. Thompson WCL showdown ends with two very different viewpoints – one side argues Daniels cheated, Thompson was injured as a result, and we’ll never know the result. The other side says this was a Daniels KO, plain and simple.
Sound off in the comments below – how do you see this one?
Join us next Friday night for Daniels vs. Holzken and the rest of Glory 23, live on Spike.