American lightweight prospect Ky Hollenbeck (45-3, 23 KO’s) now sits a #8 in the world rankings after his win over experienced veteran Warren Stevelmans in their tournament reserve match.
He watched tournament winner Andy Ristie achieve the unthinkable, KO’ing Giorgio Petrosyan and Robin Van Roosmalen back-to-back to claim the tournament’s $150,000 grand prize.
Hollenbeck is still a few places away from a main tournament spot himself - usually the top four ranked fighters take them - but he says he would like to fight the world‘s new #1 lightweight.
“I would love to fight Ristie. We both have awkward styles so it would either turn out awkward-beautiful or awkward-ugly. But I would have to train really hard for that, he is a monster,” Hollenbeck says.
“To knock out Petrosyan and Van Roosmalen like that solidifies him as one of the top fighters in the world. I told him before the tournament, if anyone was going to beat Petrosyan it was going to be him. He has that awkward style and that power.
“I can relate to people who have an awkward style because I have one as well. You can’t predict what he is going to do. The thing he caught Petrosyan with was a simple shot but it was the things he did before it, throwing his timing off and making him hesitant, which set that up.”
Hollenbeck is now riding a two-fight win streak in GLORY but says he is unhappy with how he beat Stevelmans. For much of the fight, Hollenbeck was dominating him with clinch-knees and generally throwing the South African round the ring.
“The win felt good but I didn’t win the way that I wanted to win. You always want to show your best and I wanted to show all these skills I have,” he says.
“I actually felt a bit sloppy and that is not the way I want to represent the US. Because one thing that is always said about the US kickboxers and Muay Thai guys is that we aren’t as technical as the Europeans and that is not true.
“I am more concerned with fighting well than I am with wins and losses, and I don’t feel like I fought well. Next time I am going to fight the way I want to fight and showcase my skills a lot more.”
One skill he did showcase a lot was the spinning back-fist. It is considered a fairly advanced, flamboyant technique but Hollenbeck has made it a trademark shot. He has KO’d opponents with it in the past, but he couldn’t get the right connection against Stevelmans.
“I was just trying to damage him. And to show off a little bit for the crowd, get them into it. And to make up for the clinch festival which had been going on throughout the fight,” he laughs.
“I can throw it with a lot of power, sometimes I will use it just to move someone. I am sure he saw it coming, its not hard to see, but its one of those things which can be hard to get out of the way of. I can set it up better than I was doing against Stevelmans, but I just wasn’t on A-game.”
Despite his claims to not being on top form, Hollenbeck dominated the fight from start to finish. He was so dominant in fact that one of the judges scored a 10-7 round for him, putting him in very select company.
When the fight ended, Hollenbeck took an American flag from his corner team and draped himself in it as he waited for the result to be announced. The crowd responded wholeheartedly. So was Hollenbeck expressing genuine national pride or was he just looking for home-fighter cheers?
“Genuine national pride. I love the country and I love fighting for it. There’s a lot wrong with America at the moment but there’s a lot of good as well, and that’s what I am representing,” he says.
“And when you bring nationality into it, there is that sense of representing something bigger than yourself. National pride makes the fight into something more than just me fighting. It gives me an incentive to fight harder - I am fighting for myself and for the country and the sport.”
Hollenbeck is one of a wave of American fighters who are currently changing the landscape of kickboxing. European dominance of every weight category has long been a status quo but thanks to GLORY, things are changing fast.
The next US fighter to fly the flag in a tournament will be the karate ace Raymond Daniels. He is taking part in the GLORY 13 Welterweight Championship Tournament in Tokyo, Japan and will face Canada’s Joe Valtellini in the semi-final.
That event takes place Saturday December 21 and will air on SPIKE TV in the US and on BT Sport in the UK, plus over 170 territories around the world.
By John O’Regan
