Coach: “Ben Saddik is very focused on becoming champion”

“It's been a busy camp for this event, three top fighters with very important fights, but I like to be busy. I've got a good team and good assistants around me. The schedule can be difficult but I like it,” muses Hemmers Gym head coach Nicky Hemmers ahead of this Saturday's GLORY 39 BRUSSELS.

The junior Hemmers – brother of late kickboxing icon Ramon Dekkers and son of Cor Hemmers, one of the most accomplished coaches in history – now heads up the Hemmers Gym facility in Breda, Netherlands where his father coached Dekkers and other top names such as Alistair Overeem, Gokhan Saki and Errol Zimmerman.

Having retired from coaching and passed the baton, these days it is Nicky who conducts the training camps and does the gameplanning and corner work. Stalking the mats on any given day are Jamal Ben Saddik, Marat Grigorian, Harut Grigorian, Filip Verlinden and Zimmerman.

This Saturday Hemmers Jr. has both Grigorians on the card plus Ben Saddik (31-5, 26 KO's). Despite training with him in Breda they all live a short drive away over the border, in neighboring Belgium, and thus their fights are on home soil. That has an added an extra layer of intensity to an already intense multi-fighter camp.

Ben Saddik is a heavyweight (in fact, the biggest fighter on the GLORY roster) while Harut Grigorian is a welterweight and Marat a lightweight. They have their own styles and their own abilities and their opponents are also varied, but Hemmers Jr. has not found the situation confusing.

“Our guys are fighting at different weights and against different types of opponents and of course we have different gameplans depending on the opponent,” he says.

“But all our fighters have a similar style in a way - we don't come to play for points, we come to try and take your head off. When we win a fight, we win by fighting, you know? When one of our fighters hits cleanly, it will be a good and solid hit, not a light tap to score a point.”

Hemmers aired his thoughts on the two Grigorians in previous articles. Now he turns his attention to Ben Saddik, who has been quietly manoeuvring himself into position for a title shot. Ben Saddik faces Guto Inocente (33-7, 17 KO's) in this weekend's co-main event and is looking to break the Brazilian's undefeated four-fight run in GLORY.

“This is a big fight for him. Not only for his title shot hopes but because it's in Belgium and he is getting very big there now. A documentary was just released about him, it's in the cinemas, and he's been on the late-night talk shows and stuff like that, a bit like Rico Verhoeven has been doing in the Netherlands,” says Hemmers.

“If you look at the heavyweight division right now, there's not really anyone up there to challenge Rico. You've got Inocente coming up and you've got Jamal, so really whoever wins this fight I think has to be the next to challenge Rico for the belt. And we know that Jamal has a KO win over Rico from when they first fought.”

Since that [2011] fight though, Verhoeven has developed into a fitness machine with very high-level technical skills. He has dominated the division since winning the belt at GLORY 17 LOS ANGELES and nobody has looked close to taking the title from him. Does Ben Saddik's coach think his fighter could repeat that 2011 victory?

“We've all seen what Rico has become and how good he is but Jamal can stop anybody. With his size, he only has to land one clean punch and the fight is over,” says Hemmers Jr.

“But first, this Saturday's fight. It's a big fight for him. He's not really a guy who talks a lot – I mean, inside the gym he does, but he doesn't make a lot of comments about his opponents – but he wants to win this and get his title shot. He is very focused on becoming champion.”

GLORY 39 BRUSSELS takes place Saturday, March 25 at the Vorst National Arena in Brussels, Belgium.

The event features two world title fights, with Sitthchai defending the lightweight belt against Dylan Salvador on the SUPERFIGHT SERIES segment of the card and Cedric Doumbé defending the welterweight title against Yoann Kongolo on the GLORY 39 BRUSSELS section.

Tickets are available via Sherpa.be