Rumors of Igor Jurkovic vs. Remy Bonjasky for GLORY in Japan this Summer

Tuesday, 05 June 2012 19:42

Written by Dave Walsh

How many retired fighters have their possible return match rumored about, debated over and demanded as much as Remy Bonjasky? Not many that I can think of. Sure, some MMA sites were reporting that Cro Cop's bout against Ray Sefo was his retirement fight and that his fight for K-1 a few weeks ago was a "return" match, but if you read LiverKick, you know better. Remy Bonjasky on the other hand, has been rumored to come back for just as long as he has been retired. Word started circulating right after his retirement that he wanted $1 million for a retirement fight, but not against Badr Hari, and we don't blame him for that. Then as K-1 was making its return and Glory was beginning to ramp up, there were rumors of him signing for both promotions. In fact, both sides were seemingly certain at one point, with Glory even mentioning Remy Bonjasky on their website and having a profile for him before removing it shortly thereafter.

The rumor now is two-fold. The first part of the rumor is that GLORY is looking to run in Japan this August. If so that will be huge, as K-1 has yet to make any plans for Japan, and outside of announcing Masato as an executive producer and seemingly having a crew of Japanese people behind the scenes, they do not have their sights set on running shows on Japanese soil -- yet. GLORY on the other hand is going ahead full force with their plans, even if their original plan of having the K-1 name fell through. After the amazing GLORY World Series show on May 26th it is safe to assume that GLORY knows how to put on a show when the world is watching. The other rumor coming out is that GLORY will run the Ukraine in September, a show which originally slated for mid-summer, but has been pushed back.

Back to Bonjasky, the big rumor is that he is slated to return to action in Japan for GLORY this summer against Igor Jurkovic. It would surely be an interesting fight for him to return to, and the possible addition of Bonjasky to the GLORY World Series tournament field would add a whole new air of legitimacy to it, as he is yet another multi-time K-1 World Grand Prix Champion, with three wins under his belt, marking him as one of the most elite Heavyweight Kickboxers ever. In a tournament field with four time champion Semmy Schilt, Gokhan Saki, Errol Zimmerman, Brice Guidon and more, this would make the Heavyweight tournament tip in favor of GLORY over K-1, who would only really have Badr Hari, Daniel Ghita, Sergei Laschenko and Hesdy Gerges to tip their scales.

We've reached out to GLORY officials for confirmation on this, but until we hear more, chalk it up as a very interesting rumor. [source]

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