United Glory World Series Results

This weekend marked the opening round of the United Glory World Series of Kickboxing and MMA.  Featuring two separate MMA and kickboxing tournaments, this international event started with the round of 8 this weekend, with the semi-finals and finals to be held in February.

In the kickboxing tournament, everything went pretty much according to plan, aside from some last minute card shuffling.  When original participants Errol Zimmerman and Adnan Redzovic had to drop out, a few changes were made, resulting in a pair of round 1 mismatches.  First, Brice Guidon rolled to a decision victory over Flip Verlinden.  Then Guidon's original opponent Gokhan Saki stopped Nikolaj Filan in the 3rd.  Also in the tournament, Mourad Bouzidi defeated Anderson "Braddock" Silva via decision.  These two met earlier this year at the It's Showtime Amsterdam show with the same result.  Finally, Wendell Roche defeated Stefan Leko when Leko retired from the fight in round 2.  This was another unimpressive performance from Leko who continues to demonstrate that his time in the sport is done. 

Announced semi-final fights: Gokhan Saki v. Wendell Roche, and Brice Guidon v. Mourad Bouzidi.  Look for a Saki v. Guidon final.

The other big kickboxing fight on the night featured Nieky Holzken facing Murthel Groenhart.  In a close fight, Holzken walked away with the decision after an extension round.  From watching highlights and reading comments online, it looks like there is some controversy over this decision as a lot of viewers felt Groenhart should have won.  One of the top 10 fighters at 77kg, Murthel Groenhart has been having a strong year, and a great showing against Holzken will help, even in defeat.  This fight was at 76kg as Holzken is a huge middleweight who has struggled to make the 70kg limit.  He's been trying his hand at higher weights so far this year, with mixed results.  Nothing yet set up for his next fight, though I would love to see Holzken v. Artur Kyshenko at a higher weight that doesn't force either man to cut down greatly.

Rounding out the kickboxing side of things: Robin van Roosmalen, coming off a good win over William Diender for It's Showtime in September, defeated Maxim Vyrovski by decision.

In the MMA tournament, Roan Carneiro defeated Luis Ramos (DEC); John Alessio def. Sergey Golyaev (Sub via kimura, rd 2); Siyar Bahadurzada def. Derrick Noble (TKO via punches, rd 1); and Tommy Depret def. David Bielkheden (Sub via guillotine choke, rd 1).  Semi-finals will be Bahadurzada v. Alessio and Depret v. Carneiro.

One final bit of news from this event - Golden Glory stated that they will have five fighters at the K-1 Grand Prix.  Alistair Overeem, Gokhan Saki, and Semmy Schilt are all confirmed for the tournament, while 2 more GG fighters will be in reserve fights.  If I had to guess, I'd say that would be Errol Zimmerman and Sergei Kharitonov.