Schilling: “I feel at home in kickboxing”

Joe ‘Stitch Em Up’ Schilling (19-6, 11 KO’s) is excited to back in the GLORY ring this Friday for his first kickboxing fight since his win over Robert ‘White Dragon’ Thomas at GLORY 19 VIRGINIA back in February.

Schilling, who fights out of The Yard in Los Angeles, California, was originally set to challenge Artem ‘The Lion’ Levin for his middleweight title this Friday. The Russian came down with an elbow injury in training and so Dutch prospect Jason ‘Psycho’ Wilnis (25-5-1, 7 KO’s) stepped up to take his place.

GLORY matchmaker Cor Hemmers has said that the winner of this Friday’s fight gets the next middleweight title shot, which means Wilnis has the chance to steal Schilling’s spot and jump the queue.

“It’s going to be a tough fight, Jason is a strong opponent. I was excited for the title fight with Artem Levin, obviously, but that fell through when he got injured. Jason has a lot of experience and has fought a lot of top guys, he knows the game well,” says Schilling.

“When he has a bad night he is not that impressive but when he has a good night he is really impressive. He isn’t someone who takes too many steps backwards, he marches forwards. He is a dangerous opponent and he will bring the fight, he will be in my face the whole time.”

New York’s Wayne Barrett has faced both Schilling and Wilnis. He has said that he sees Schilling taking the win this Friday and that he sees a vulnerability to knee strikes in Wilnis aligning with Schilling’s strength in that technique.

“I think that tight guard does leave a channel up the middle. Artem was successful with it but Pereira tried that several times and wasn’t very successful with it. The knee is a possibility but I don’t see any glaring weakness in him apart from the fact that he has that shell-up style,” muses Schilling.

“I think that if he gets cracked pretty solid it tends to take the fight out of him a little bit. Levin put a hurting on him a little bit in the first round and he seemed to stay in the shell after that, he didn’t really open up like he did against some other guys like Simon Marcus.

“I think his defense is really tight but he can get stuck in it sometimes and I think you are going to see him in that shell for a lot of our fight.”

Since the win over Thomas at GLORY 19, Schilling has had two MMA fights under the Bellator MMA banner. He debuted for Bellator in November last year with a stoppage win over Melvin Manhoef but this year he lost a controversial split-decision in his first bout and was then stopped himself in the second, his first KO loss under MMA rules.

Schilling is not the first fighter to compete in both MMA and kickboxing. Alistair Overeem and Tyrone Spong are examples of fighters who have made a success of it, but there are also plenty of examples of fighters who have not. GLORY matchmaker Cor Hemmers has talked about how his dislike of fighters competing in two different sports; he feels they lose focus.

“It is nice to be back in kickboxing where I feel at home, I’ve had a six-week training camp specifically for kickboxing and it’s so different to training for MMA where I am learning how to wrestle, defend submissions and get back to my feet. My kickboxing was naturally less sharp due to that and so it’s nice to be back in kickboxing showing my skills against one of the best in the world,” says Schilling.

“This year has been pretty crazy for me, I’ve had a lot of fights. I jumped into MMA at a high level. The last fight I got caught, shit happens. MMA is a different game to kickboxing, so many different things which can happen, little gloves and so many different reactions that can happen. I still like doing it and I am really happy with Bellator, so I am not done with MMA.

“But it is nice to have a kickboxing fight in front of me. I was looking forward to being on the Dynamite card but the medical suspension from the Bellator fight meant I couldn’t do it. But I think it has worked out well in terms of me being able to headline this card for GLORY.”

GLORY 24 DENVER takes place this Friday, October 9 at the Magness Arena in Denver, Colorado and features a four-man Heavyweight Contender Tournament, the winner of which will go forward to challenge Rico Verhoeven at GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM on December 4.