United Glory World Series Complete Recap

United Glory put on an action packed show to kick off its first Kickboxing and MMA World Series in Europe.  The first event took place at the Passenger Terminal in Amsterdam on Saturday Oct. 16^th and is to be followed by two more events – the semi-finals in February 2011 in Belgium and finals in April 2011 in the Netherlands.  The World Series is a combination of two separate tournaments for MMA and Kickboxing. 

The opening round featured three MMA bouts, two tournament and one extra fight, followed by six Kickboxing fights, four tournament and two extra fights, and finishing off with the final two tournament MMA fights. 

An outstanding commentary job for the fights was done by Bas Rutten and Mauro Ranallo.  In attendance as part of the audience were Alistair Overeem, Strikeforce World HW Champion and Marloes Coenen, Strikeforce women’s Champ.  United Glory provided dancing and music entertainment between the bouts during two pauses separating the kickboxing and MMA matches.  The winners of each tourney will be awarded $150,000.

MMA Fights Recap

MMA Tournament Fights were three 5 minute rounds for each fight at Welterweight.  The event began with an extra MMA fight between Robert Jocz, age 33 from Poland (19-6) and Hrach Darpinyan, age 24 from Armenia (10-2).  This was a short fight ending in the first round, within the first minute of the round, with Darpinyan quickly knocking out Jocz with an upper cut, ending Jocz’s 5 fight win streak.  The fight was a good way to kick off the welterweight MMA tournament.

The first fight of the MMA tourney was between 32-year-old Roan Carneiro (14-8) from Brazil and 29-year-old Luis Ramos (16-6) also from Brazil.  Carneiro is the holder of 21 professional belts, while South American Shotto champ Luis Ramos, was riding a three fight win streak.  The fighters began round one on their feet however there was almost no striking during the round, which ended with a takedown attempt by Carnero.  Second round brought some more stand up with good kicks.  Carnero secured a single leg takedown which was reversed by Ramos.  During the third round there were more takedown attempts but both fighters were able to get up fairly quickly. Most of the round was spent on the ground with some standup at the end.  Ramos delivered more strikes during this round.  The fight went the full three rounds and was sent to decision where the judges scored in favor of Carneiro.

Next was an awaited bout between 29-year-old Russian Sergey Golyaev (17-8) coming in with a four fight win steak and 31-year-old John Alessio (30-13) from the USA, representing Extreme Couture.  The fight began with a beautiful double leg takedown and transition into side control by Alessio and some ground and pound.  For the rest of the round there was some great grappling with good transitions.  In round two Alessio immediately went for the double leg again and got it.  Alessio dominated the round but had to take some illegal knees to the head delivered by Golyaev while John was going for an armbar. The fight was won by John Alessio via submission.

The next bout was between 32-year-old Derrick “The Eraser” Noble ( 24-15) from the United States and 26-year-old, 3 time World LHW Shooto champion Siyar “The Great” Bahdurzada (18-4) from Afghanistan and representing team Golden Glory in the Netherlands.  Originally Siyar was supposed to face Nick “The Goat” Thompson, who had to pull out of the fight last-minute, with under a week left to go because of a head injury sustained during training.  Nick was replaced by his coach UFC vet Derrick Noble.  This was a short fight with a first round KO by Siyar Bahadurzada over Derrick in less than two minutes.  Siyar caught Derrick in the corner with a right hand punch through Derrick’s guard, which caused Derrick to fall to the ground.  Siyar immediately went for the ground and pound and after Derrick reversed giving up his back the ref called the fight.  After his win Siyar spoke with Bas Rutten about MMA, its reputation and the hard work pro fighters have to go through in order to get to a competitive level.  The speech was very relevant to current problems MMA in Amsterdam is facing with the mayor wanting to ban the sport in Amsterdam.  Both Bas and Siyar provided very good arguments in defense of the sport.

The final MMA fight of the evening was between David Bielkheden (15-8) age 31 from Sweden and Tommy Depret (8-3).  This was also a very short fight in which Tommy Depret secured a win via submission just 36 seconds into the fight.  David Beilkheden who is a BJJ black belt immediately went for the take down.  He was landed on his back and Tommy already had David in a guillotine choke.  Reversing to full mount and putting more pressure on David, Tommy made him tap out for what was a great finish to the fight card.

kickboxing fights Recap

Kickboxing bouts were three 3 minute rounds for each fight and all at heavyweight. 

The first kickboxing match was between 21-year-old Robin Van Roosmalen (17-1) from the Netherlands and 23-year-old Maxim Vorovski (21-4) from Russia.  This fight got off to a quick start and in the first round Vorovski was able to deliver a series of rapid body shots.  However the rest of the fight was dominated by Van Roosmalen who was able to unload body shots, liver shots and hooks for an impressive decision win by points.  Van Roosmalen had taken this fight on a one days notice and said this was not a problem for him since he trains all of the time.  Next on the roadmap for him is the K-1 competition.

The next fight was between Mourad Bouzidi, 25 years old (65-13-2) from Tunisia and Anderson “Braddock” Silva, 24 years old (28-5-1) from Brazil. Though Silva had the height advantage in this fight he was coming off a previous loss to Bouzidi and looking to secure a win this time around, however the bout went to Bouzidi.  This was a hard to score close fight with many quick exchanges and combinations.  Even though it was a HW fight both fighters remained very active throughout all rounds not showing signs of becoming tired.  Bouzidi who began training at the age of 10 and had his first fight at age 13 gained momentum in the second round and kept it up for the rest of the fight, earning a decision win.

Following this fight was Brice Guidon, age 25 (24-5) who lives in France but trains in Amsterdam and was coming in with a 5 fight win streak, against Filip Verlinden (27-5-1) from Belgium.  The fighters had a tough act to follow after the previous close fight, but were able to immediately go to work with Verlinden aggressively getting the action going with nice combos, low kicks and shots to the body and head.  Guidon kept it up and was able to respond.  This was a close round but Verlinden had the clear advantage demonstrating more, faster and flashier combinations with more power.  Guidon turned the fight around for himself during the second round and kept it up through the third round.  Guidon’s shots became clearly more powerful; he kept more active and was landing more accurate shots and well as demonstrating some nice kicks and knees.  The fight went to Brice Guidon who won decision by points. 

Next in line were Pride and now 53 fight veteran Wendell Roche, age 39 (46-7) from the Netherlands and 36-year-old, former Kickboxing world champ and  2000 IKBO Muaythai World title holder, Croatian/German Stefan “Blitz” Leko (64-23) who was coming off of a 3 fight win streak.  Leko was discovered when he was 17 and is the first person to beat Badr Hari in K-1 by first round KO.  He currently fights for team Golden Glory in the Netherlands.  This fight got off to a good start in the first round with Roche putting some pressure on Leko next to the ropes.  Both fighters kept very active and technical through the round.  Surprisingly the fight was stopped prematurely in the second round by Stefan Leko who unexpectedly suffered from a dizzy spell and ended the fight.  Winner was Wendell Roche by 2^nd round TKO. 

Following this was the most exciting Kickboxing fight of the night between  Nikolaj Falin, age 30 (19-5) from Russia and the ever popular Gokhan “The Rebel” Saki, age 26 (71-13-1) from Turkey, but currently living and fighting out of the Netherlands for team Golden Glory.  Gokhan is a World Muay Thai champion and began training at age of 10.  He is the first ever Turkish fighter to hold a K-1 tournament title.  Saki dominated all rounds demonstrating tremendous speed and power against his opponent prompting the crowd to break in to “Saki” chants during the second round.  Saki used many kick combinations as well as some flashy ones and although Falin did not back away and put on a valiant effort he was overpowered by Saki in the third round when Saki won the fight by KO.  Saki thanked his mom and talked about his next challenge coming up in K-1 December 11^th.

The last Kickboxing fight was the most controversial fight of the night between Murthel Groenhart, age 24 (43-12-3) from Surinam and fan favorite Nieky “The Natural” Holzken, age 26 (68-9) fighting for Golden Glory in the Netherlands.  All the rounds in this fight were very close with many good exchanges between the fighters.  The first round was a methodical, technical fight with Groenhart managing to work in some good push kicks and punches through the guard of Nikey.  The second round was also action packed with exchanges and Groenhat seemed to dominate this round.  The third round was also very close with an excellent finish after which the fight went to an extra round.  The extra round of action seemed to be close to call as well, with both fighters’ reactions showing that each thought he was the winner.  The fight went to Nikey Holzken who got a razor-thin win by points.  The Groenhart crew seemed dissatisfied with the decision.  Nikey went on to dedicate his win to his wife’s grandmother who had passed away the week before.  His wife could be seen in the crown emotionally reacting to the dedication.

Overall the event was a success and was superbly organized to provide and good balance between MMA and Kickboxing as well as plenty of entertainment during the breaks for the audience.  Live stream of the fights was made available on www.unitedglory.tv/live.  The event was also being broadcast live in four different theaters in Holland and Belgium.  Video recap of the event’s fights and entertainment can be viewed on www.unitedglory.tv.  You can look forward to next two events of the tournament and keep up on updates on www.unitedglory.nl or if you are on twitter you can follow Martijn de Jong at twitter.com/martijndej.

[Update] Fight of the Night KB = Gokhan Saki vs Nikolaj Falin & Fight of the Night Shooto = Hrach Darpinyan vs Robert Jocz

Tags: KickBoxing, MMA, United glory

Category: MMA