Anissa Meksen is the new GLORY women’s world champion.
The French standout took a unanimous decision win over defending champion Tiffany van Soest in the main event of the GLORY 48 NEW YORK Superfight Series card.
Unanimous the decision may have been, but one-sided the fight was not. In fact it was one of the closest championship contests in GLORY history and the scoring could have easily gone either way.
The two were closely matched. Both laid claim to being the best female super-bantamweight in the world: Van Soest won last year’s Grand Prix to win the title belt, while Meksen has won nearly a hundred fights in her career and captured several lesser belts on the way to this duel.
Over five rounds they traded back and forth with pinpoint precision strikes. Van Soest and Meksen are two of the most technical fighters in the division and consistently create clean scoring opportunities for themselves.
The first two rounds were rather tentative, measured affairs as the two fighters felt each other and probed each other’s defenses. Things heated up in the third round, with Van Soest pushing the pace and Meksen proving very hard to hit even as she sought to counter.
Volume of output seemed to favor Van Soest but Meksen seemed to be enjoying a little more accuracy, particularly with her kicks. Nonetheless, there was very little to choose between them round after round; this was not a fight in which anybody envied the judges.
Still, after five rounds the judges were sure they had found a definite winner: all three gave the win to Meksen and two of the three judges had her as winner of four of the five rounds, a scoreline which is sure to prompt debate.
Anissa Meksen def. Tiffany van Soest, Unanimous Decision (49-46, 49-46, 48-47)
