Glory 9

        With the legalization of mixed martial arts in New York constantly being shot down by our elected officials year after year there has been a void in combat sports in "The Big Apple". Due to this New York's fighters and fans have had to cross the river and take the 3 hour journey down the coast of New Jersey to Atlantic City to be a part of their favorite sport. In the meantime kickboxing promotions have been popping up throughout NYC such as Take on Productions and Friday Night Fights capturing the combat sports market. This has helped grow the sport of kickboxing, especially in the tri-state area, giving fight fans the fast paced and action packed stand up aspect of mma without the methodical human chess match that is the ground game. Prior to this past weekend "the city that never sleeps" has never had the opportunity to host an internationally viewed, high level production fight card besides boxing. This past Saturday night that all changed.

          On Saturday, June 22^nd the premier kickboxing promotion, Glory invaded New York and hosted their highly anticipated event “Glory 9” at the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center. The fight card was stacked with the best fighters and coaches from around the world. Leading up to the event many participants spent time training and teaching at some of the local gyms in New York. The Glory 9 Light Heavyweight tournament’s winner Tyron Spong’s head striking coach Henri Hooft spend a lot of time at Long Island MMA running a seminar and offering private lessons. Henri had cornered Long Island MMA’s Ryan LaFlare 2 months prior in his UFC debut.

          The event kicked off with a preliminary card that featured local amateur and pro fighters including Andrew Ball, Andrea DeAngello and UFC vet Nick Pace all scoring victories in front of their hometown. After the prelims the main fight card began to air on CBS Sports with a tournament reserve bout between Randy Blake & Koichi Watanabe. The fight went all three rounds with Blake winning a unanimous decision. The next fight was for the other reserved spot in the tournament, Glory paired up Artem Vakhitov vs. Luis Tavares. Vakhitov made quick work of Tavares with body shots halting the action at the 1:06 mark of the first round. The next bout put heavyweights Anderson Silva up against Daniel Sam in a competitive fight that gave Silva the unanimous decision by the score of 30-27 on all 3 judges’ score cards. The nights first tournament fight matched the #1 ranked light-heavyweight Danyo Ilunga across the ring from Mourad Bouzidi. Ilunga came out to the ring in traditional warrior attire with spear and shield in hand. Danyo Ilunga won the unanimous decision to advance into the tournament. The second light-heavyweight tournament match had the two Americans Brian Collette vs. Dustin Jacoby paired up in a technical display of striking. In a split decision Jacoby advanced in the tournament. In one of the closest fights of the evening Filip Verlinden edged out Steve McKinnon in a narrow split decision by the scores 29-28,28-29,30-27. In the final quarterfinal matchup “The King of The Ring” Tyrone Spong fought tournament black horse Michael Duut in the hardest hitting 31 seconds of the evening. In the opening moments of the round Duut connected cleanly sending Spong to the canvas shocking the crowed. Spong collected his bearings got to his feet and the fist began to fly with Spong knocking out Duut with an over hand right in one of the most impressive looking knockouts of this year.

           In the first semi-final bout Dustin Jacoby met Danyo Ilunga and both men left it all in the ring. Both men were aggressive moving forward with each of them landing some solid shots. At times in this fight you had to wonder how they stayed on their feet and could continue to push such a frantic pace. When all was said and done neither fighter would go down and the bout went to the judges’ scorecards. The judges awarded the bout to Ilunga by the scores of 29-28 on all cards advancing him into the finals of the tournament and one step closer to the $200,000 grand prize. In the last of the semi-final bouts combat sports superstar Tyrone Spong fought Filip Verlinden, winner would advance to the finals in the tournament. The way these two men got here couldn’t be more different with Spong knocking out Dutt in 31 seconds and Verlinden in an all-out war and squeaking out a split decision over McKinnon. Spong pushed the pace keeping Verlinden’s back against the ropes throughout the fight coasting to a unanimous decision victory.

In the final of the “Glory 9 Light-Heavyweight Tournament” we saw the two favorites square off in a highly anticipated match between Danyo Ilunga(46-5, 36ko) vs. “The King of The Ring” Tyrone Spong(72-6, 45ko). This fight was a kickboxing super fight; it featured one of the top heavy-weights in the world moving down in weight to fight the #1 Light-heavyweight. Ironically, Ilunga trains under Remy Bonjasky which Spong knocked out in March at Glory 5. Unfortunately, the fight didn’t live up to what everyone had hoped for both fighters came out and through heavy leather. Spong connected, stunning Ilunga for a moment. The referee jumped in between the fighters to stop the action, waiving the fight off just 16 seconds into the first round shocking Ilunga and the fans. Spong celebrated in the ring with his corner men, Blackzillian’s head striking coach Henri Hooft and former UFC light heavy-weight champion Rashad Evans. Tyron was presented the tournament belt and the $200,000.00 check by co-promoter Lou Neglia, WKA representatives and Glory execs.