'The Predator' promises Holzken: "I'm going to take your head off"

“Five years of heat” lie behind the GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM rematch between Nieky ‘The Natural’ Holzken and Murthel ‘The Predator’ Groenhart, according to the latter.

Amsterdam native Groenhart clashed with Holzken in 2011. They fought in an event at the Amsterdam Passenger Terminal and the fight went the distance, with the judges ruling it a draw and calling for an extra round.

Holzken was then judged to be the winner of the extra round and was awarded victory in the fight, which infuriated Groenhart. He believed he had already won the fight anyway and that an extra round wasn’t even necessary.

Some bad feeling subsequently developed between the two and there is a score to be settled. Back in August, Holzken did an interview in which he advised Groenhart to go and win a contender tournament if he wants to get a rematch. Groenhart duly did just that, at last weekend’s GLORY 25 MILAN event.

“It is going to be real special man. It’s my home town. The last time I fought in Amsterdam against Nieky, we went to an extra round. I thought I won but they gave it to Nieky and I was not happy about it,” says Groenhart.

“Now we are back in Amsterdam, back in my home town, everybody is coming and I am going to show the people that I can beat this guy Nieky. So everybody, I am telling you right now, buy your tickets now, don’t wait, don’t hesitate. GLORY 26 is going to be epic.

“I am not going to say anything bad about him as a fighter, he is a very good fighter, lots of respect for him as a fighter. He has got his fans, I have got my fans and they are all going to be there, so it’s going to be a good atmosphere and we have to bring it.

“But yeah there is some heat. Five years heat. He didn’t know I was still fighting? Guess what, I am still fighting. I hope you are ready for me because I am going to take your head off.”

Groenhart’s winning of the GLORY 25 MILAN Welterweight Contender Tournament saw him stop his first opponent on a cut then nearly stop France’s Karim Ghajii in the final. But in his efforts to blow Ghajii away at the end of their first round, he gassed himself out and almost put himself in jeopardy.

Nonetheless, he triumphed in the end, and the tournament win marked something of a return to classic form versus the inconsistency of recent years. The effect on his confidence has been marked, even with the close turnaround time between GLORY 25 and December 4’s GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM.

“The whole thing from the beginning was the stand-out for me. We came, we saw, we conquered. We had a great preparation for the tournament,” he recalls.

“Ghajii was a hard fight. That guy has a hard head. I thought I could take him out in the first round but I was too greedy. I had to take a step back and watch him and then we [ended up] going over three rounds. A very good fighter with a very hard head, but I did what I needed to do.

“At 77kgs I feel good, I feel confident, I feel myself. At this weight I am a problem for many fighters, I am going to stay at this weight. At 70 kilos it is different, I am sometimes strong and sometimes not, but at 77kgs I am always strong.

“People have been forgetting about me I think, I am here to prove a point. I am going to show you more at 77kgs, more of me, The Predator.”

GLORY 26 AMSTERDAM takes place at the RAI Amsterdam on Friday, December 4 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The double-header event also features a world heavyweight title fight as Rico Verhoeven defends his belt against Romania’s Benjamin Adegbuyi for a second time.

Also on the card is a Featherweight Contender Tournament which will see the winner move forward to challenge new champion Serhiy Adamchuk. Among the participants are former world #1 Mosab Amrani and US prospect Shane Oblonsky.