GLORY 42 PARIS takes place this Saturday night at the Accor Hotels Arena in Paris, France and is a really strong card, probably the strongest of 2017 thus far. Yesterday we looked at the matchmaking on the Superfight Series section of the card and now we're going to look at the main card.
The centerpiece of the card is a four-man Lightweight Contender Tournament.
We are in a position where Sitthichai is sitting tight as champion and Marat Grigorian is sitting tight at the #1 contender spot and finding that not a lot of guys want to face him. So the winner of this tournament will face Grigorian and if they win that fight then they will get a title shot.
Chris Baya (57-5-1, 34 KO's) faces Anatoly Moiseev (19-2, 5 KO's) in the first semi-final and in the other semi-final Niclas Larsen faces Stoyan Koprivlenksi. The winners of the two semi-final fights will then meet each other later in the evening for a fight to determine which of them is the tournament winner.
Baya came in on late notice to beat Josh Jauncey at GLORY 35 NICE and showed a lot of potential. We would have had him back earlier but he got injured and wasn't available when we wanted him.
He and Moiseev is a good fight, they have different styles but are at a similar level and I think it will be an exciting clash. Moiseev had a great start in GLORY then ran into Marat and we saw what happened, but I still think he shows great potential, he is a really good prospect.
Larsen (46-8-2, 24 KO's) was due to face Beztati in this one but Beztati had some injuries from his GLORY 41 fight last month. We looked for a French fighter to take the slot but nobody of the right level was available so it passed to Koprivlenski (7-0, 3 KO's), who had a standout performance on the GLORY 41 undercard and showed a lot of heart.
Koprivlensi is of course the underdog against Larsen, who is really tricky and dangerous and has more experience, but if he can win then who knows what he can do next? Baya and Moiseev for me is an open fight, it can go either way.
The co-headline fight has some bad blood in it as Murthel Groenhart (65-22-3, 37 KO's) and Harut Grigorian (44-10, 32 KO's) meet for the second time. They fought in Spain in 2012 and Harut was winning the fight until the last round, when Groenhart was able to come back and overpower him and find a finish. So there is some history between them already.
They were supposed to fight at GLORY 41 but then Harut suffered a broken toe in training and was pulled out of the fight by his trainer. Groenhart made a lot of comments about it and that really upset Harut because if there is one guy on the roster who I can call and have him fight anyone on a moment's notice, it is Harut. He is a real fighter, he didn't want to pull out but his trainer made him.
So there was some sh-t-talking and that has given Harut a lot of motivation to go out there and look for the knockout. And we have already heard that Groenhart is looking for the knockout, because he has said that the quicker he can get a knockout, the quicker he can get to the title.
Both fighters are hungry for a title shot and we can confirm now that the winner of this match will fight the winner of the headline bout on this card, which is a welterweight title contest between Cedric Doumbé (66-4-1, 39 KO's) and Nieky Holzken (90-12, 46 KO's).
When they first met, at GLORY COLLISION in December, Holzken was the champion and Doumbé was the challenger. But now the roles are reversed, because Doumbé won the belt that night in what was a really big upset.
One of the only people who fully believed in Doumbé that night was Doumbé. He posted all the time on social media that he would beat Nieky and take the belt from him and he did it. He backed up his words.
Nieky was upset after that fight. He wanted an immediate rematch but Kongolo was in position for a title shot so that happened first. Again we saw a lot of confident from Doumbé before the fight and even more during it. It was an amazing performance from him, with his incredible reflexes. He kept the belt against Kongolo and Nieky was happy with that because he wants to face Doumbé for the title and get revenge.
Anyone who listens to Nieky talk about Doumbé can see that he genuinely hates him. With his trash-talk and antics he is the total opposite kind of personality to Nieky. Personally I don't think he genuinely means everything he does and says, he is just a performer. Everything he does and says is designed to mess with his opponent's mind.
If you can control the things between the ears of the opponent then you are a step ahead. On top of that, Cedric is very skilled, he has good combination work and really great movement. He is marketable, a guy who can be a star for his fans. We are happy to have championship fights of this caliber.
Doumbé wants him coming forward non-stop, so that the can move and surprise him from other angles. Nieky has to be careful with the pressure, in the beginning anyway. He needs to hurt Doumbé early and use his complete range of kickboxing skills, not just boxing. That was the same mistake Kongolo made.
Holzken got caught out by the trash-talk and disrespect last time but he's normally a cool character and I don't think he will fall for it again. He is going to look to stay calm and do his job. He will be prepared mentally. But if he comes forward too much then the same will happen.
