Nieky Holzken (87-11, 46 KO's) vs. Murthel Groenhart (58-18-3, 33 KO's), World Welterweight Championship Fight
I think Nieky is on good momentum. He feels good and has good confidence. I think Murthel is a great and dangerous fighter, but I give the edge to Nieky, especially if the fight goes over five rounds.
I think Murthel needs to do his thing in the early rounds. He is dangerous then, especially with his knees. Nieky is a guy who takes time to get into the fight whereas Murthel is the opposite, he is most dangerous early on and he tends to slow down a bit as the fight goes on.
I think either of them can win this fight and the early rounds are going to be spectacular, lots of action. If the fight goes past that I give the advantage to Nieky.
Rico Verhoeven (46-10, 11 KO's) vs. Benjamin Adegbuyi (22-3, 15 KO's), World Heavyweight Championship Fight
Is it too soon for Benny to rematch Rico? We will see. The big thing is that Benjamin now has experience of fighting Rico. That makes a huge difference. You can form opinions of a fighter based on video and reports and things like this but nothing compares to the experience of actually fighting someone.
Once you have felt their power and their techniques, things like that. He lost the fight at GLORY 22 FRANCE but this time he has a much better idea of what he is facing. Of course, the same applies to Rico as well and he is in great condition right now, but I don't think this fight is a foregone conclusion. It is more open than people are expecting.
FEATHERWEIGHT CONTENDER TOURNAMENT
Mosab Amrani (53-10-4, 16 KO's) vs. Chibin Lim (69-18, 40 KO's)
Shane Oblonksy (10-4, 3 KO's) vs. Maykol Yurk (7-3, 5 KO's)
There's a huge Moroccan community in Amsterdam and Mosab will have huge support in the crowd. He is also the tournament favorite, he was #1 in this division for a long time. He faces Chibin Lim in the semi-finals, a very good fighter from South Korea. They are 1-1 against each other so this is also a rubber match.
Mosab had some problems with Gabriel Varga at GLORY 20 DUBAI. People thought he was going to run Varga over and take the title but actually it was Gabriel's night. I think that Amrani will get a huge energy from the crowd in Amsterdam though and I expect that powers him to win the fight and go to the final.
Maykol Yurk faces off against Shane Oblonsky in the other semi-final. Yurk is a young guy from Brazil, I think he can surprise a lot of people. He has a very forward-pressure style and he likes to get into the fight.
Oblonsky we have seen before and I think a lot of people will agree with me that he is one of the best North American fighters. People always say that American kickboxing is not on the same level as European kickboxing but that does not apply across the board. We have tested Shane a couple of times and we were very impressed, especially [at GLORY 22] in France. This should be an explosive fight. Both very hungry guys.
Whoever wins the tournament here can move forward and provide a strong challenge to the new champion Serhiy Adamchuk.
He took the belt from Gabriel Varga at GLORY 25 MILAN last month but I wasn't too impressed with the fight, which happens sometimes. There was a lot of clinching and grabbing. I think Adamchuk was thinking about the title and Varga was not on his best form. I think that in his first title defense he will want to show what he is really capable of; whoever wins this tournament will be a tough test for him.
GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM airs live today, Friday December 4, in Holland on SPIKE TV NL.
In the USA, it airs live on live on ESPN3 at 4 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. PST
Replay on ESPN Deportes: Sunday, Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. PST
Replay on ESPN2: Sunday, Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. EST / 5 p.m. PST
