It was increasingly clear that Nieky Holzken had decided to leave GLORY after his last fight with the organization. After being the face of the welterweight division in GLORY for years, Holzken found himself on the outs, with a new breed of welterweight running the division. When GLORY didn’t see the value in a big-money contract in Holzken after a series of losses, Holzken took to social media to vent his frustrations numerous times. So it should come as no shock to anyone that Holzken is in the process of signing with another organization. While most kickboxing fans saw a [read more]
Tag: nieky holzken
Nieky Holzken Announces GLORY Departure
In what was one of the last true holdouts of the old Golden Glory guard left in the GLORY ring, Nieky Holzken has decided to depart the promotion after contract negotiations fell through. Holzken, the former GLORY Welterweight Champion essentially cleaned out the division, running roughshod over it for years, that was until he met Cedric Doumbe. While Holzken is still an immensely talented fighter, a new generation of fighter stood in his way, including Doumbe and Alim Nabiyev, who were able to hand him three losses. It’s interesting to see the deal with Holzken fall through right before GLORY [read more]
GLORY Hammers Out Card for GLORY: Redemption PPV
GLORY will be closing out the year with their new, year-end tradition of a huge, triple-card featuring a Rico Verhoeven title fight as the linchpin at GLORY: Redemption. Rico Verhoeven will be defending the GLORY Heavyweight Championship against Jamal Ben Saddik, while also featured on the PPV will be Zakaria Zouggary vs. Petchpanomrung for featherweight contendership, a rematch between Danyo Ilunga and Michael Duut and Anderson “Braddock” Silva against Xavier Vigney. The GLORY 49 SuperFight Series is headlined by a Middleweight World Championship bout between champion Alex Pereira and Yousri Belgaroui, Nieky Holzken fighting Alim Nabiyev, Ismael Londt vs. D’Angelo [read more]
Nieky Holzken Withdraws From GLORY 45 Co-Main Event
There she goes, my beautiful world. Just as quickly as we learned that Nieky Holzken would be fighting Alim Nabiyev, we learn that Nieky Holzken suffered an injury and has been forced to drop out of GLORY 45. This serves as not just a blow to the main card, but also a blow to the event as a whole, considering Holzken serves as a big draw, bussing in friends and family to cheer for him. Hesdy Gerges vs. Mladen Brestovac moves up from the SuperFight Series main event to the co-main for GLORY 45, leaving Wilnis vs. Belgaroui as the [read more]
A Look Forward to GLORY 45 Amsterdam
On September 30th GLORY returns to its spiritual home of Amsterdam, the Netherlands for what is shaping up to be one of the better-looking events of the year. The recent shake-up in the Nieky Holzken fight of Yoann Kongolo being replaced by legitimate top-contender Alim Nabiyev has made GLORY’s Welterweight division a bit more interesting, making it exciting to look forward to the event as a whole and what the future could be. MMA has had the oddsmakers busy this year, plenty of betting sites have been getting in on the action. After you check out our analysis,the sites featured [read more]
Yoann Kongolo Out Against Nieky Holzken at GLORY 45, Alim Nabiyev In
Late replacements happen all of the time in fight sports, seemingly more often in kickboxing, which is just the nature of the sport and the preparation, I suppose. On the latest episode of the LiverKick Podcast Jay and myself talk about how GLORY’s weight classes feel a bit stale near the top of the division, with the same few fighters going at it without much variation. So Nieky Holzken vs. Yoann Kongolo at GLORY 45 was a decent fight, but a fight that we’ve already seen and weren’t exactly excited about seeing again. GLORY announced today that Kongolo is no [read more]
Full Fight Card for GLORY 45 Announced
The full fight card for GLORY 45 Amsterdam was announced today, the event taking place on Saturday, September 30th. The event is headlined by Robin van Roosmalen defending his GLORY Featherweight Championship against former champion Serhiy Adamchuk in the main event, with the event also featuring a light heavyweight tournament and a welterweight bout between Nieky Holzken and Yoann Kongolo. The GLORY 45 SuperFight Series is headlined by a heavyweight bout between Hesdy Gerges and Mladen Brestovac and the line-up in general is pretty great. Former Middleweight champion Jason Wilnis takes on up-and-coming contender Yousri Belgaroui and in a featherweight [read more]
WATCH: GLORY 42 Weigh-ins on Eve of the Event
Tomorrow marks GLORY’s 42nd event, live from Paris, France. Main eventing the show is former Welterweight Champion Nieky Holzken looking to regain his crown from Cedric Doumbe. Both men seemed in good spirits at the weigh-ins, Holzken seemed unfazed by Doumbe’s mental games, including wearing trunks saying “EndOfNieky” on them. The GLORY 42 SuperFight Series airs Saturday afternoon, live on UFC Fight Pass at 12:30 eastern/9:30am Pacific while GLORY 42 airs live on ESPN3 at 4pm eastern/1pm pacific.
Let’s Rewatch Nieky Holzken vs. Cedric Doumbe Before GLORY 42
This weekend in Paris at GLORY 42 Nieky Holzken and Cedric Doumbe will fight in a rematch from GLORY Collision, where once again the GLORY Welterweight Championship is on the line, but this time there is a different champion. Holzken originally won that championship on December 21st, 2013, only to lose it almost exactly three years later on December 20th, 2016. While Holzken has lost outside of GLORY, including since the launch of GLORY, this remains the only loss on his record within the promotion, leaving him at 12-1 heading into the rematch. The question is: can this fight be [read more]
WATCH: Cedric Doumbe’s Masterful Performance Against Yoann Kongolo at GLORY 39
We’re just over a week away from the much-anticipated rematch between GLORY Welterweight Champion Cedric Doumbe and the former, longstanding champion Nieky Holzken, whom Doumbe dethroned to take the title back in December. In between then Doumbe has had one title defense, against a career rival in Yoann Kongolo who actually held two wins over the champion’s head. The sheer growth of Doumbe was on full display during this fight, watch as the usually-composed Kongolo became unhinged as the fight wore on and he found himself unable to touch the smiling Doumbe. Incredible fight.