Meet the Fighter - Filip Verlinden

Filip Verlinden (40-9-1, 16 KOs) fights out of Bulls Gym in his native Belgium and is treined by his father, Wim Verlinden. A former Belgian champion, wim in his youth was trained by Cor Hemmers, heas of the Golden Glory team and coach of the lengendary Ramon Dekkers among others.

Nearly 25 years after Cor first held pads for his father, Filip often found himself making the short drive over the border into the Netherlands to train with Cor. Lately, Cor has retired from training and handed the reins to his son Nikky. There’s an entwining of premier fighting bloodlines in the 29-year-old Verlinden.

On Saturday night he will be one of eight fighters competing in the GLORY 9 NEW YORK light-heavyweight tournament. The tournament also features world-ranked #1 Danyo Ilunga and the tournament favorite Tyrone Spong.

“Spong is the favorite and yeah, I think that is fair. He is very experienced, very strong, he has a good technical game and a really strong team around him right now. Regarding Ilunga, he is number one for a reason, he has been winning the fights and he is the top guy in the rankings right now,” says Verlinden.

“But in a tournament anything can happen and I think it is wide open. There are several guys who can win it and I am definitely one of them.

“I came out to the USA nearly two weeks before this event. I have some friends over in Los Angeles so we went there to train and to get used to the time difference from Europe. I’m a big Manny Pacquiao fan but I didn’t train at the Wild Card gym with Freddie Roach, it’s too expensive.

“It would be nice to the train there one day though.”

Verlinden has spent his career fighting at heavyweight because prior to GLORY, it was only at heavyweight or lightweight that a fighter could make money. The weight classes in between were neglected, leading to a lot of natural light-heavyweights trying to pack on weight so as to be able to hang with the naturally huge monsters of the heavyweight class.

Now, light-heavyweight is a flagship division for GLORY. Fighters at 95 kilograms (209lbs) combine heavyweight knockout power with middleweight speed and movement. Verlinden is already noted for his speed - multiple opponents say he is the fastest fighter they have ever faced. On Saturday he will put his lightning-quick combinations to work.

“Light-heavyweight is a good weight class for me because really it’s my natural weight. I find it hard to put weight on and I was always one of the lighter guys at heavyweight. It’s going to be interesting, fighting at this weight, I hope to get some good results,” he says.

It is worth noting that even at heavyweight, Verlinden was doing very well indeed. He won the 2012 heavyweight tournament staged by the highly regarded Russian ‘amateur’ organization IFPA. This has given rise to a myth that Verlinden had an extensive amateur career, and it’s something he is keen to clear up.

“Actually I didn’t fight that much at ‘amateur’ as such. I had some junior fights, some novice fights, but most of my fights have been as a professional. I won the IFPA title. They call it amateur but actually it’s not, its full Muay Thai only you are wearing protective equipment, 2 he explains.

“They are trying to get the sport into the Olympics so this competition is designed to show that it works as an Olympic sport. But if you look at the guys who are fighting in it, they are all top-level pros. I fought Sergei Lascenko, you’ve got other guys like Artur Kyshenko and the Russian guy, Artem Levin. You’ve seen Levin? He is very, very good.

“Actually the guys from Russia and from Eastern Europe [former Soviet states], they usually get money from the government to train and to compete, they are a lot more supported than, say, in Belgium. They don’t need to worry about jobs or finding income, they can train full-time and focus on competition. So guys like Levin compete in this tournament every year.”

A lot of those top level-pros are, like Verlinden, on the GLORY roster. With the organization making its debut on US soil this weekend and the show airing on CBS Sports, what can the American fight fans expect to see from Verlinden and his colleagues?

“If they like to see someone who has good technical stand-up, who always fights for the finish and who tries to put on a show for the fans then I think they will like the way I fight. It’s something new for a lot of US fight fans and I think they are really going to like it. It’s going to be a great show.”

And if he wins the $200,000 tournament grand prize?

“I think I would save it. I think I would like to keep the money in the bank so that I could pay for myself to train full-time for a few years. Then I could win some more tournaments and win even more money!”