On Saturday, November 23rd the GLORY World Series will invite the world’s four top lightweight kickboxers to New York City, where they will fight in a one-night tournament to determine which of them is the best.
All four are champions in their own right but only one of them can be the ‘King of New York’ who emerges with the $150,000 grand prize. And with second place worth $30,000, the fighters are going to leave it all in the ring.
GLORY 12 NEW YORK will air live in America on SPIKE TV and in Canada on The Fight Network. The high-caliber card also features a range of non-tournament bouts taking place as part of the GLORY Superfight Series.
The line-up is one of the strongest concentrations of talent to be found on any fight-sport event of 2013. The four names invited to take part in the GLORY 12 NEW YORK Lightweight Championship Tournament are as follows:
Robin Van Roosmalen (30-5, 19 KO’s)
Netherlands
Ranked #1 in the official GLORY World Series Rankings
Van Roosmalen has gone 5-1 in GLORY with only one man spoiling his run - Giorgio Petrosyan. The Italian champion took a points decision over Van Roosmalen in the final of the GLORY 3 ROME tournament last year, forcing him into the #2 place.
To Van Roosmalen, #2 might as well be #200. The only number he wants is #1 and this year, he’s going after it. Ever since the 2012 Final he has wanted a rematch, maintaining that Petrosyan won the decision because the fight was taking place in Italy.
He has also maintained that he will beat Petrosyan if they meet again - and not by points, but by knockout. With a KO rate of 66% in his victories, Van Roosmalen isn’t just spouting empty words.
Promising to knock out a fighter who has lost just once in his entire career is a bold statement indeed but if anyone in the lightweight division can do it, it is Van Roosmalen.
Giorgio Petrosyan (78-1-1, 35 KO’s)
Italy
Ranked #2 in the official GLORY World Series Rankings
Giorgio Petrosyan is pound-for-pound the best kickboxer in the history of the sport. He is so good that, in the past, opponents were thought to have done well if they landed any clean shots on him at all, never mind try to beat him.
Petrosyan’s fighting embodies everything Italy is famous for - it is artistic, beautiful, stylish. Petrosyan’s superb timing and clean delivery of technique means he can make opponents look foolish with a simple sidestep or one well-placed push-kick. People call him ‘the Floyd Mayweather Jr of kickboxing’.
Unlike Mayweather Jr he doesn’t say a lot outside the ring, preferring to let his fighting do the talking. For years he was the undisputed #1 but Robin Van Roosmalen recently surpassed him in the rankings, having been more active than Petrosyan this year.
Being ranked #2 is something Petrosyan is completely unused to and for the first time in many years, ‘The Doctor’ is the one going into a tournament with something to prove.
Davit Kiria (21-8, 6 KO’s)
Georgia
Ranked #3 in the official GLORY World Series Rankings
Kiria brings a cold-minded ferocity to the ring which few other fighters can match. ‘Backwards’ is not a word in Kiria’s instruction book - he is constantly on the attack and always moving forward. He was almost unknown going into the GLORY 3 tournament last year. Afterwards, he was the lightweight division’s most talked-about fighter.
Kiria’s background is in Ashihara Karate, a branch of the notoriously hard-style Kyokoshin Karate discipline. Toughness, spirit and endurance are three things which are hammered into Ashihara students mercilessly. They are broken down in training and rebuilt until they can never be broken again.
Kiria has tested himself and pushed his limits. When he fights, he seeks to do the same to his opponents. He throws constant combinations, always with full power, creating a wall of pain.
And he is versatile; without warning he will pull one of his unique karate tricks out of the bag - such as the front-roll heel-kick - which means opponents cannot afford to lose concentration for even a moment.
Andy ‘The Machine’ Ristie (39-3-1, 19 KO’s)
Suriname
Ranked #4 in the official GLORY World Series Rankings
Ristie comes from the Suriname in South America. The former Dutch colony is a hotbed of kickboxing talent, with fighters such as Remy Bonjasky and Tyrone Spong also having their roots there. Ristie is on a mission to carve his name alongside theirs in the history books and so far he is on the right path.
Ristie first emerged onto the international stage in 2011 when he was signed to It’s Showtime, the European organization which was bought out by GLORY. Ristie won his first fight in style and got busy thereafter, fighting as often as possible and usually winning by knockout. In 2012 he went 6-1.
Ristie has a powerful left hand and very hard knee strikes, which he can land to the head or body with equal ease. Early in 2013 he KO’d the one-time K-1 MAX champion Albert Kraus, shooting up the rankings and booking himself a place in this tournament.
Two years of momentum are carrying Ristie into this tournament. It is the biggest event of his career and the moment he has dreamed of ever since he turned professional. There will be no mercy for anyone from ‘The Machine’.
GLORY 12 NEW YORK takes place Saturday November 23 at ‘The Theater at Madison Square Garden’ in Manhattan, New York.
Also on the card is a heavyweight clash between knockout kings Jamal Ben Saddik and Ben ‘The Guvnor’ Edwards and an inter-coastal clash between West Coast man Joe ’Stitch ’Em Up’ Schilling and the East Coast’s own Wayne Barrett.
