Doumbe, an accomplished Muay Thai fighter who made his first ventures into kickboxing last year, has rattled Groenhart’s cage already. When the match-up was first announced, he posted a social media message tagged ‘#PrayForMurthel’, a play on the marketing of Parisian fashion label Pray for Paris.
Groenhart didn’t get the reference, or the joke. He took a mental snapshot of the post, for motivational purposes, then got into it with Doubme on Twitter. After some back-and-forth, he says Doumbe went quiet.
“He talked his s—t and at first I was like ‘Eh? I don’t even know this guy’. He posted a message, ‘Pray for Murthel’… I was already training, but after that I trained a little bit harder. I want to hurt this guy now, really cause him some pain, only because he started talking s—t,” he says.
“But he was only talking trash for a second. He started it, I talked some back… then he went quiet! If you want to talk trash and talk gangster then do it to the end, you can’t be a five-minute gangster. He went quiet, but I will see him at the weigh-in on Friday and we will see then what he has to say.”
Groenhart is coming off probably the best performance of his career. His fight with Nieky Holzken at GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM was, for him, a masterpiece which was widely saluted. But the decision didn’t go his way. After five rounds, Holzken was declared the winner. The rationale was that even though Groenhart had far outlanded him overall, Holzken had landed the most powerstrikes.
“For me, I won every round except the last round. In the fifth round he got on the inside, I lost that round. But the first four rounds were mine I think – I was making the fight, scoring the points, making him miss,” he says.
“So if you score kickboxing like it’s supposed to be scored, I won. Not scoring a bunch of bulls—t like walking forwards with your hands high and sometimes making a punch or something. If you look at kickboxing the way you are supposed to look at it, by the rules, rounds one to four are mine.
“It was a shame because it was a great fight for all the people in Amsterdam. We all know why I lost the first fight against this guy. Then I lost to him like this again? Everyone was like ‘Wow, what the f—k is this?'”
Their first fight was in 2010, also in Amsterdam, and Groenhart believes Holzken was a judges’ favorite and benefited from some biased decision-making. Groenhart postulates that it is essentially impossible to lose to Holzken on points because Holzken’s style – start very slow and look to land a fight-finishing blow in the latter-half of the fight – means that he won’t accrue a high score if the fight goes the distance.
“Look, you cannot lose to Nieky on points. He is always waiting for that one shot which will win him the fight, so he doesn’t fight in way that will win the fight for him on points. It isn’t possible to go and lose to Nieky on points,” he fumes.
“Look at how Artur Kyshenko fought him – he used the same tactics as me and he was the winner of the fight. So if it comes to a third fight yeah, my confidence is really high, I know how to beat him and I know I can beat him. I really feel like I am the #1 in this division. People know I am the #1, he knows I am the #1 – look at his face when they announce him as the winner. He couldn’t believe it. But that was that. Everyone saw it. So, if there’s another fight let’s do it. I am always down.”
Is Groenhart actively chasing a third match with Holzken, even if the title changes hands at GLORY 29 COPENHAGEN next month when Holzken meets Yoann Kongolo? “If there is a third one, cool. I don’t think a third fight could go to the judges. I wouldn’t let it go to the judges.”
Mention of Kongolo’s title shot also sparks Groenhart. Whereas ‘The Predator’ got a shot for winning the GLORY 25 MILAN welterweight tournament, Kongolo was eliminated in the semi-finals by Karim Ghajii. He bounced back with a win over Karapet Karapetyan at GLORY 26.
“Kongolo is fighting Nieky for the title but he didn’t win a tournament. I had to win a tournament to get a title shot, but now Kongolo can just walk in and get a shot so easy. Why? I don’t understand it. He should have to fight Ghajii at least, right?” says Groenhart.
“Can he beat Nieky? I don’t think so. If you want to beat Nieky you have to knock him down. That’s the way to beat him. You can beat him by knocking him down or knocking him out.”
Listening to Groenhart talk, it’s clear that his old fire is back. This time last year he sounded jaded, either the cause or reflection of his run of mixed results. At GLORY 23 LAS VEGAS in August he returned to welterweight, ending a year-long layoff in the process, but dropped a decision after a fairly lacklustre fight.
“I think it’s the motivation. When it’s a big fight you have to prove yourself but when it’s some guy who is not your level, it’s kind of hard to motivate yourself. It’s a mental thing I think. But also, when I fought Chad Sugden in Las Vegas I hadn’t fought for like a year, so it was kind of hard getting back in the game,” he admits.
“But since then I had the tournament [in Milan] and then I fought Nieky. Now I am back in the game. Now I can do my thing. Before the fight with Sugden I was off for a year, I was training but not so hard, I had my first child, I was busy. GLORY didn’t call me for a long time and I had other things going on.
“But then I got that call… just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in, ha! I have my rhythm back and rhythm is an important thing for a fighter. So now for Cedric Dumbo, Dumbell, Doumbe – whatever you call him, it’s going to be a hard night.”
GLORY 28 PARIS takes place this Saturday night at the Accor Hotels Arena in Paris, France and is headlined by Rico Verhoeven defending the heavyweight championship against Croatian giant Mladen Brestovac, plus a four-man lightweight tournament with Thai standout Sittichai, former champion Davit Kiria, local wild card entry Djime and current K-1 MAX champion Marat Grigorian.