Canada's Jessica Gladstone scored a huge upset when she came in on a week's notice and beat Germany's Daniela Graf in this quarter-final bout of the Women's Super-Bantamweight Grand Prix.
Graf had been due to face Zoila Frausto but an injury pulled the American out of the fight. Her initial replacement was then also unable to participate, making Gladstone the third new name for Graf in a matter of days.
With Graf being incredibly experienced relative to Gladstone, it seemed victory would be a foregone conclusion. But one advantage of being an unknown quantity is that you have the element of surprise. When Gladstone arrived in New Jersey for fight week, she towered over the diminutive German.
That height and range difference was hugely important in the fight, as Gladstone was able to stay out of harm's way while delivering a varied output of punches, kicks and knees. Graf got stuck in and repeatedly forced her way into range to deliver blows of her own but she took a lot of knee strikes from Gladstone because of that.
Graf has no quit in her and kept pressing forwards even when, by the final frame, it seemed clear things were going against her. But it was to no avail; Gladstone maintained her output and Graf kept falling short on her shots.
After three rounds the fight went to the judges' cards. Two had it for Gladstone by scores of 30-27, while the third judge had it scored – implausibly – as a 29-29 draw. Gladstone therefore scored a Majority Decision win over Graf, one of the biggest upsets in GLORY history. She can now advance to the smei-final of the Super-Bantamweight Grand Prix, where Tiffany van Soest awaits.
