Raymond ‘Real Deal’ Daniels faces Nieky Holzken this Friday in the main event of GLORY 23 LAS VEGAS. It is a rematch of the GLORY 19 Welterweight Contender Tournament final in which Holzken stopped Daniels in the second round.
Holzken was then due to face ‘Bazooka’ Joe Valtellini for the World Welterweight Championship but Valtellini was forced to vacate the belt as he deals with a health issue. GLORY therefore ordered a re-run of the Contender tournament final, only this time with the World Welterweight Championship title on the line.
Daniels and Holzken are very different both stylistically and in attitude. Holzken professes admiration for humble fighters and says he tries to emulate that himself, whereas Daniels is as flamboyant on his way to the ring as he is inside it. “Holzken probably looks at me as this flashy American but I like to keep it entertaining and put butts in seats,” he shrugs.
According to the bookmakers Holzken is set to take another win over Daniels this Friday in a re-run of their first fight. But the Californian says that things will be different this time; he says fatigue was a big factor at GLORY 19.
“A lot of my moves are those Grand Slam moves, those ‘knock it out of the park’ moves. So its not that I haven’t been training to go five rounds with him, but my shots are devastating when they land, especially when I am fresh,” he says.
“I don’t pay attention to the critics but I do hear a lot of ‘Nieky is going to do this, Nieky is going to do that, he destroyed him in the first fight’ - man I hope Nieky thinks he is going to be facing the same fighter as that night. If he comes in thinking that, he will need to adjust quickly if he wants to make it to the second round.”
The fight ended under the ‘three knockdowns’ rule, the referee waving the bout off as Daniels was downed for the third time. According to Daniels, it wasn’t so much that Holzken was really hurting him, more that he was too tired to absorb the shots.
“The first time he hit me with the body shot was the only time that I was really like ‘ooh’ at one of his shots. Other than that he hit me with a couple of knees which I felt. But mostly I was just gassed man. I was out of gas, there’s no excuse for it,” he says.
“I didn’t feel like he was more powerful or his technique was much more dominant. He just had more gas in the tank than I did. There were spurts in there where I was hitting him and one time I heard him go ‘F--k!’ out loud because I was frustrating him. I could see that frustration setting in and I plan on having that happen for the entirety of this second fight.
“Strengths? he is really good at putting pressure on and then relaxing when he needs to relax. He has got good hands but nobody is perfect. He has holes in his game just like I do, and it is my job to expose those holes.”
GLORY 23 LAS VEGAS takes place this Friday, August 7 at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event airs live in the US on Spike TV at 11pm ET/10pm CT.
In the co-main event, Californian heavyweight Xavier ‘X-Man’ Vigney seeks to continue his march to contender status as he faces the experienced Daniel ‘The Warrior’ Sam of London, England.
