Semmy Schilt

Semmy Schilt towers over the kickboxing world both literally and metaphorically. Standing at 2.12 metres (just under 7 feet) he is the tallest of the world’s elite kickboxers and also the most accomplished. His four K-1 World Grand Prix wins equal those of the legendary Ernesto Hoost but Schilt is the only person ever to win three of the tournaments back-to-back. Schilt’s background is in Ashihara karate. The style is a branch of the Kyukoshin karate tree and it shares that system’s fondness for hard sparring and heavy contact in training. Add to that the fact that Schilt hails from Rotterdam, a hard docklands city in the north of Holland, and you can understand why he is such a tough customer. Sometimes fighters who enjoy a size or weight advantage use that to compensate for a lack of technique. But Schilt is a technically-precise fighter and while he generally doesn’t deploy a wide arsenal in his fights, he is very good at sticking to a strategy and he causes a lot of damage when he lands. With 130 kilos behind each blow even the most glancing shot from Schilt is enough to stun an opponent and so they approach him with extreme caution. Schilt’s kickboxing record shows how difficult he is to deal with. He has 38 wins and just six losses. Of those losses three are to the three-time K-1 Grand Prix winner Peter Aerts, who is one of the all-time greats of the sport, and one is to the former K-1 heavyweight champion Badr Hari. Only the best of the best can beat Schilt and as most of the world’s biggest names are now signed with GLORY, that is where Schilt has chosen to test himself. And as he is ranked as the number one heavyweight in the world by most kickboxing media, his presence automatically makes the GLORY heavyweight division the kickboxing world’s toughest.