Peter Aerts

After two decades facing and beating the best heavyweights in kickboxing history - often more than once - the word ‘legend’ is hardly does justice to Peter Aerts.

His record is a Who’s Who of the sport. Aerts holds three victories over the giant Semmy Schilt, three wins over Jerome Le Banner and two over Ernesto Hoost as well as wins against Remy Bonjasky, Gokhan Saki, Errol Zimmerman, Ray Sefo and more.

A master of the head-kick, Aerts has ended nearly eighty fights inside the distance for a finishing rate of over 75% in his victories. This is one of the highest finishing rates in the sport and is all the more impressive because Aerts has so many fights on his record. 

It was this tendency to knock opponents out and send them crashing to the canvas which caused Aerts to be nicknamed ‘The Dutch Lumberjack’. The nickname was particularly pleasing to him because his own father had in fact been a lumberjack. 

His knockout power and incredible toughness led him to win three K-1 World Grand Prix tournaments. He competed in every K-1 World Grand Prix tournament since the competition’s formation in 1993 and its first hiatus in 2011. 

Despite these many achievements Aerts continued to seek out new challenges and tougher opponents for himself, prompting him to end his career as part of GLORY’s stacked heavyweight division.