GLORY is in Dubai, United Arab Emirates this week for GLORY 20 DUBAI and GLORY Superfight Series 20 at the Dubai World Trade Centre this Friday, April 3.
Both cards are stacked with top talent from around the world. GLORY 20 DUBAI hosts two world title fights and a four-man Middleweight Contender Tournament while the Superfight Series card features twelve fighters looking to battle their way up the rankings and into tournament spots and title contention.
As usual, we’re going to take a look at the matchmaking process which lies behind this Friday’s fights, starting with the GLORY Superfight Series 20 card.
Anatoly Moiseev (9-0, 2 KO’s) vs. Max Baumert (13-5, 4 KO’s)
Lightweight (154lbs/70kgs)
Moiseev won a TATNEFT tournament in Russia, which is not an easy thing to do. He is young, really aggressive, he is the kind of guy we like to see in GLORY. He was to fight Elias El-Rayess from the local MMA promotion here, Desert Force, but he was forced to pull out with a broken foot and has been replaced by Max Baumert of Germany.
To be honest, I think that makes it a much tougher fight for Moiseev. I think Baumert is the more complete fighter and a better kickboxer. We last saw him at GLORY 19 against Josh Jauncey. The fight was stopped on a cut but Baumert was winning up to that point. This is a great fight to start the show, they both like to come forward and throw their hands so it should be a war.
Atakan Arslan (18-7, 14 KO’s) vs. Chad Sugden (12-3, 3 KO’s)
Welterweight (170lbs/77kgs)
Atakan looked good in his GLORY 15 ISTANBUL debut, he lost a close decision to Jonathan Oliveira of Brazil but Atakan has talked about a bad injury he had before that fight, he had surgery to put a steel rod in his arm two months before the bout, so maybe we didn’t even see him at 100% in Istanbul.
Sugden is a young British talent, he’s very interesting to us. He fought in K-1 before and then he came to do some training in the Netherlands and I was able to take a look at him. He has got a lot of talent and he is definitely a prospect for the future. He was an amateur boxer in his youth before moing full-time into kickboxing.
Obviously this is a big pressure for Sugden, making his debut in the big show, but I have to say that his future in GLORY doesn’t depend on the result of this fight. Even if he comes out on the losing side, so long as he performs well we will continue to work with him and give him a chance to develop. And the same with Arslan.
Also I can say that the winner of this fight is likely to be added to the GLORY 21 SAN DIEGO card for May 8 in a fight against Raymond Daniels, so long as there are no injuries to prevent that.
Samir Boukhidous (33-2-1, 11 KO’s) vs. Mikhail Chalykh (22-1, 15 KO’s)
Middleweight (187lbs/85kgs)
This is a reserve match for the Middleweight Contender Tournament, the winner can step in as an alternate if one of the tournament finalists is injured. Boukhidous has been waiting to debut for some time and we thought he was a good fit for this card because he is of Arabic heritage.
Chalykh is a new fighter as well. He was introduced to us by a former business partner of ours in Russia, he said we had to check him out as a new addition to the middleweight division. Initially I said ‘Well, we already have Artem Levin from Russia and he is the middleweight champion” and I was told “Yes, but this guy beat Levin when they fought”. So that was interesting straight away.
We had a look at him and he’s got good hands and nice precise striking. Boukhidous has a very tricky style, lots of different tricks and setups but he is coming off a long layoff so it may be that he suffers from not being in competition rhythm, unlike Chalykh.
Yongsu Park (3-8, 3 KO’s) vs. Chi Lewis-Parry (4-0)
Heavyweight
By coincidence we just signed a new TV deal in South Korea at the same time as Park was negotiating his return. He is very well known in Korea, quite famous. When he was in Holland some years ago we visited a well-known Korean restaurant and immediately there were people in there jumping up to come and see him and ask for photographs and stuff. So he is legitimately famous there, he has been on TV a lot.
He was supposed to debut for us back at GLORY 5 LONDON but he struggled with some injuries for a while and that kept him out of competition. He has a Tae Kwon Do background so he has some really amazing kicks of all kinds, although his boxing isn’t of the same level so you can’t say that he is really a complete kickboxer.
Lewis-Parry is a former professional basketball player who moved into fighting. He has been competing in MMA for the ONE FC organization in Asia and he is undefeated. He is also undefeated in kickboxing, four wins. It is always interesting to see guys crossing over from other fighting disciplines to fight under GLORY rules.
He is a confident guy too. I have seen interviews where he is talking already about challenging guys like Rico Verhoeven in the future. He was originally matched with Xavier Vigney for this card but then we moved Vigney to the heavyweight tournament at GLORY 21. Lewis-Parry was talking trash about Vigney afterwards, saying he is a one-trick pony, so he might have already started his first rivalry before even making his debut!
Mourad Bouzidi (76-22-2, 34 KO’s) vs. Dustin Jacoby (4-5, 3 KO’s)
Light-Heavyweight (209lbs/95kgs)
Jacoby has a real fighter’s heart. You can call him anytime and he is ready to fight, 85 kilos or 95 kilos. He came into GLORY in a spectacular way, by winning three fights by KO in one night in a Road to Glory tournament which he entered on 48 hours notice.
But then he came into GLORY at a high level, fighting really experienced guys right away. His debut was against Michael Duut and then he faced guys like Danyo Ilunga and Alex Pereira. So he has only faced Top Five guys in GLORY for the most part. That says a lot about his spirit but it has also been bad for his record. He got thrown to the wolves a bit when, if I am honest, we should really have given him time to develop.
In Dubai he is fighting Bouzidi, a very experienced guy who has faced everybody at the top level. Bouzidi is also of Arabic heritage so he will have the home advantage because the crowd will be behind him. He had some hard fights recently but this time he is coming off a win over Randy Blake at GLORY 18 so his confidence is up.
Jacoby has a really good jab and probably some speed advantage on Bouzidi but I think Bouzidi has so much experience that you have to give him the advantage in this one. But if Jacoby has a good performance then I think we will give him some fights down the rankings, at a more appropriate level, I think we owe him that.
Saulo Cavalari (30-2, 19 KO’s) vs. Artem Vakhitov (13-4, 5 KO’s)
Light-Heavyweight (209lbs/95kgs)
This is an interesting fight because it is such a clash of styles. It is also a meeting between the division’s two top contenders and the winner will go forward to challenge Gokhan Saki for his light-heavyweight title later this year, probably in Europe.
Actually Cavalari could have gone straight into a title shot anyway because he won the Contender Tournament at GLORY 18, but he wants as much ring experience as he can before the title shot so he wanted to take this fight when the opportunity came up.
Cavalari is more of an attacking fighter, he goes forward and takes opportunities regardless of consequence, whereas Vakhitov is much more calculating, he fights in a calmer way and looks for his openings. In technicality I give the edge to Vakhitov and in aggression to Cavalari.
Vakhitov is undefeated in GLORY with three wins from three fights. Cavalari only has one loss in GLORY and that was a decision he dropped to Tyrone Spong at the Light-Heavyweight Championship tournament at GLORY 15 ISTANBUL.
We’ve seen some big knockouts from Cavalari - he stopped Mourad Bouzidi with a frightening right-hand KO and he also took Zack Mwekassa out with a head kick to win the GLORY 18 Light-Heavyweight Contender Tournament. Vakhitov has finishing ability too, as we saw in his body-shot stoppage of Luis Tavares.
So this is a really interesting fight and a really important fight for the division. Saki actually lives in Dubai now and he will be ringside to watch this one closely.
GLORY Superfight Series 20 takes place Friday April 3 and airs in the US on CBS Sports on Saturday April 4 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
A live HD stream of the event is available via our streaming partners EverSport and is priced at $9.99
