Superfight Series 16 Results

****Spoilers Alert****

Six fights took place on Saturday’s Superfight Series card at GLORY 16 DENVER, three of which ended inside the distance.

One of those finishes was spectacular and looks set to be the Knockout of the Year 2014 and also a contender for Knockout of the Decade.

The fights will air in the US on the CBS Sports Network at 9PM ET on Sunday May 4. The results are below; do not read on if you wish to avoid spoilers.

Benjamin Adegbuyi vs. Daniel Sam

Heavyweight

Daniel Sam didn’t get a chance to get into the fight with Benjamin Adegbuyi.

The Romanian heavyweight let Sam feel his power early on and that was enough to shut his British counterpart down almost entirely. Apart from the occasional jab and rare left hook effort, Sam did little but move backwards under a tight guard.

Adegbuyi chased after him, finding it difficult to get combinations off against a constantly retreating opponent. With Sam protecting his head so tightly, Adegbuyi went after his legs and body with hard kicks and punches, looking for Sam to start dropping his hands as they took effect.

It did the trick; Sam started to lose steam under the punishment and in the second round he ended up pressed against the ropes with Adegbuyi teeing off. A jab put Sam in place for an Adegbuyi right hand, which landed with force.

Sam bounced forward off the ropes and fell sideways. The referee counted, Sam didn’t get up, and the fight was over - Adegbuyi is now 2-0 in GLORY with both wins by stoppage.

“I was happy enough with my performance. It is always nice to get the KO but I wanted more of a fight,” he said afterwards.

“Now I am ready to fight anybody GLORY wants to put in front of me. I am here to do big things so let’s see who comes next.”

Artem Levin vs. Robert Thomas

Middleweight

Artem Levin had a gameplan in place for his encounter with Canadian debutant Robert Thomas, but the referee wasn’t a fan of it.

GLORY rules allow fighters to clinch for several seconds, and referees have some discretion to allow a clinch situation to continue if it is an active one in which damage is being done. But the referee in this fight didn’t want to see any clinching at all, and split them as soon as they occurred.

Levin, facing a rangy fighter and already booked for the GLORY LAST MAN STANDING tournament next month, had a plan that centered on coming in, landing his strikes and then entering the clinch to land knees.

He received a warning from the referee in the first round and in the third the referee stopped the fight to deduct a point from Levin. It was a dubious decision which overshadowed Levin’s competent, if win.

“This was not correct. You are allowed to clinch for several seconds under GLORY rules and so I was surprised when the referee was telling me otherwise. Then he took a point away, it wasn’t right,” he said afterwards.

“But anyway. I invite everyone to watch me next month in Los Angeles, the GLORY LAST MAN STANDING tournament.”

Niclas Wamba vs. Jamal Ben Saddik

Heavyweight

This was Wamba’s debut for GLORY and it was not an auspicious one. He came in as the holder of a minor world title but it quickly became clear that the elite heavyweights of GLORY were another level.

Ben Saddik became frustrated as Wamba continually retreated from the fight. When Ben Saddik was able to land cleanly and put his shots together Wamba seemed uncomfortable. Whether big-show nerves or Ben Saddik’s sheer size, it looked like he was not enjoying himself one bit.

There were several occasions when Wamba went down and took a referee’s count, possibly going down easier than he should have. Two such knockdowns came in the second round before a third sealed the deal. Wamba returned to the floor and the referee waved the fight off.

Ben Saddik briefly celebrated the win but quickly turned furious, kicking the ropes and kicking his mouth guard out of the ring into the crowd. Afterwards he expressed his frustrations.

“I don’t want to say anything too bad but I don’t feel like Wamba really came to fight. I think after the first good punch I put on him, he felt the power and it looked like he didn’t want to fight any more,” he said.

“So it was hard to fight like that. But I am happy I got the win. I was on a three-fight losing streak going into it so I needed this win. Now I’m going back to the gym and ready to fight again.”

Artem Vakhitov vs. Igor Jurkovic

Light-Heavyweight

Artem Vakhitov has emerged as one of the light-heavyweight division’s rising contenders, now riding a 3-0 run in GLORY after outclassing Igor Jurkovic over three rounds in their GLORY Superfight Series 16 showdown.

Jurkovic came into this fight with some momentum. The Croatian former heavyweight made his light-heavyweight debut at GLORY 14 ZAGREB in march with a first-round knockout of the top ten-ranked Michael Duut.

He was confident he could do the same against Vakhitov. In pre-fight interviews he commended Vakhitov’s amateur record but said the Russian lacked enough experience in the professional ranks to provide a threat to him.

Jurkovic was wrong. As a southpaw, it is usually him who is the tricky one in a fight against an orthodox opponent. But he quickly found that Vakhitov’s boxing ability and sense of timing were tailor-made to provide a nightmare for him.

Like his team mate and training partner Artem Levin, Vakhitov has a somewhat twitchy, movement-heavy style which serves to unsettle their opponents and disrupt their offensive output. He is also good at setups, throwing long combinations in which the initial blows are intended only to steer the recipient onto those which will do the real damage.

As an example, in the first round he guided Jurkovic’s hands into a defensive posture with light hooks then smashed a hard right hand straight down the middle of the gap between Jurkovic’s gloves. Jurkovic went down and for a moment it looked like the fight might be over, but he managed to get back up and back into it.

Intense frustration was the story of the fight for Jurkovic as Vakhitov confounded him with distance and evasion. Jurkovic frequently found himself swinging at air while Vakhitov was able to get in and out to land his shots. A broken nose only added to Jurkovic’s woes in the second and third rounds.

Only in the third, as Vakhitov tired and slowed, did Jurkovic have some moments which he could look back on with any fondness. But it was too little too late, and Vakhitov won a clear decision as the final bell rang on the fight.

“The first round I did what I wanted to do, I had it all planned out,” he said afterwards. “Only in the third round I was losing my breath a little bit, because of the high altitude, but I pushed through it.

“Who do I want to fight next? It doesn’t matter to me, anybody they want to match me with I will fight.”

Raymond Daniels vs. Francois Ambang

Welterweight

Words will struggle to do justice to what he pulled off in this GLORY Superfight Series bout with Francois Ambang. ‘Amazing’ ‘Incredible’ and ‘Unbelievable’ are just a few of them.

The fight started with a bit of feeling out, Daniels playing his trademark erratic movement and kicking game while Ambang walked him down. An early axe-kick effort from Daniels was ambitious but ineffective.

Daniels took some criticism after his GLORY 13 TOKYO loss to ‘Bazooka’ Joe Valtellini. His boxing skills and his low-kick defense both came under fire. In this fight tonight he showed he had worked hard on those areas, checking almost all of Ambang’s low-kick efforts.

Then, in a wild exchange near one corner of the ring, Daniels knocked Ambang down with an overhand right.

Ambang was wobbly when he got up and that set the stage for the incredible finish -  Daniels feinted, Ambang reacted, Daniels moved in with a side kick then turned that into a mid-air spinning heel-kick to the jaw which knocked Ambang out in one of the most incredible finishes in kickboxing history.

Josh Jauncey vs. Warren Stevelmans

Lightweight

The veteran Warren Stevelmans represented the stiffest test of young Jauncey’s fledgling career. Stylistically the two are quite similar. Jauncey is from Canada but has trained extensively in Holland under former world #1 Andy Souwer, while Stevelmans fights out of Amsterdam’s Vos Gym under Ivan Hippolyte.

Any kind of feeling-out process went out the window in the first twenty seconds. Stevelmans put two hard left body kicks on Jauncey and the fight clicked into top gear. They hammered combinations into each other, Jauncey disregarding his reach advantage to stand right in with Stevelmans and exchange power-shots.

It nearly cost him dear; in the latter half of the round Stevelmans was able to put him down hard with a right hand/left hook combination. Jauncey looked to be out for a second but beat the count and was then able to recover his senses, get back into the fight and make it to the end of the round.

Over the next two rounds Jauncey was increasingly able to take control and to find his range and timing, though his corner continually reminded him to keep moving. When he would stand still and exchange he was giving Stevelmans chances to do damage and land another bomb.

Jauncey has a nice kicking game. He battered Stevelman’s with body kicks left and right, turning his mid-torso into an ugly purple, and he also landed with ‘Brazilian kick’ efforts, though not cleanly enough to do proper damage.

By the end of the fight the judges had it a draw, due to the knockdown Jauncey had suffered in the first round. They went to an extra round and Jauncey took over, using his reach to stay out of trouble and sweeping Stevelmans off his feet so hard that the referee, seeing Stevelmans trying to take his time getting up, gave him a ten-count.

That sealed it for Jauncey; the win was in the bag. Stevelmans tried taking his head off with huge hooks but Jauncey was able to stop him coming forward with kicks. The end of the round signaled the end of the fight.

Having passed a big test and taken the first win of his GLORY career, the young Canadian - now 20-4 with 9 KO’s - celebrated with a crowd-pleasing backflip.

GLORY Superfight Series 16: Results

Jamal Ben Saddik def. Niclas Wamba via TKO (three knockdowns) 1:24 R2

Benjamin Adegbuyi def Daniel Sam via KO, 2:59 R2

Artem Levin def Robert Thomas via unanimous decision (29-27 x 3)

Artem Vakhitov def Igor Jurkovic via unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27)

Raymond Daniels def Francois Ambang via KO (spinning heel kick) 1:47 R1

Josh Jauncey def Warren Stevelmans via unanimous decision, R4 (Sudden Victory Round) (10-8, 10-8, 10-8)