Khbabez vs Abena 3 Fight preview

The preview of COLLISION 7’s co-main event is powered by Unibet.

This Saturday night, December 7, will see the biggest kickboxing event of the year as GLORY COLLISION 7 takes place inside the GelreDome football stadium in Arnhem, Netherlands. 

This event will feature twelve incredible bouts headlined by a five-round title fight  between GLORY champion Rico Verhoeven (64-10, 21 KO) and his challenger Levi Rigters (19-2, 9 KO). In the co-main event of the evening, bad blood will be settled between GLORY Light Heavyweight World Champion Tarik Khbabez (51-11-1, 28 KO) and GLORY Light Heavyweight Grand Prix Winner Donegi Abena (30-10, 10 KO). 

This is the third encounter between two rivals in 2024. The Moroccan powerhouse took the belt from Abena back in March in a very close affair but the Surinamese got his revenge in June during the Light Heavyweight Grand Prix. Both fighters are looking to prove that they are the superior kickboxer and win this heated trilogy fight.

Winner of seven of his last eight fights, Abena has been on a tear in the GLORY Light Heavyweight division lately. An incredible run that saw him capture the belt in 2023 and win the Grand Prix earlier this year. At only 26 years old, Donegi has already established himself as one of the greats and he is hungry for more. The evolution in his fighting style serves as a testimony of how much he has grown since his GLORY debut in 2018. 

His countering abilities were on full display during the Grand Prix Final and his win over Bahram Rajabzadeh serves confirmed that another shot at the belt was inevitable. The former champion is very comfortable letting his opposition walk forward and settle the pace of the fight. A strategy that allows him to use his incredible science of the ring to pick apart aggressive opponents with his mobility and precise counters.

He will need those movements to contain the very aggressive Tarik Khbabez. ‘The Tank’ might be one of the most fitting nicknames in all of fighting as the champion only goes forward and aims to crush anyone standing in his way. His outstanding faculty to cut angles and his conditioning make him a very suffocating fighter to face. It’s his ability to keep pushing the pace in the later rounds that allowed him to capture the light heavyweight title in March as he earned the decision victory in the championship rounds. 

Both fighters are very tough and durable. Finishing either is extremely hard and this fight will probably be decided by the fighter that is able to make his moment count the most. We’ve seen both of them go to distance once and we expect this fight to be extremely close once again.