Thiago Silva is looking forward to making his GLORY Kickboxing debut this Friday night at GLORY 48 NEW YORK in Madison Square Garden.
The former UFC fixture has been an MMA competitor for the last fifteen years, but recently found his attention caught by the stand-up wars of GLORY Kickboxing and decided he would like to try his hand at it.
Earlier this year he made a connection with Mike Passenier, head trainer at Mike’s Gym in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and has completed a five-week training camp there ahead of this Friday’s fight.
“I like Mike, I like his style and his approach. I had a good time training there, lots of bodies to work with and very hard training. It was good,” says Silva, who first got to know Passenier through Melvin Manhoef, when Manhoef visited Florida to train.
“The sparring at Mike’s Gym is really hard. 90 minutes of sparring, full power, no breaks, no water. You have to survive. It’s really tough, I liked it a lot,” he says.
“So now I’m feeling confident for Friday. I am known as an MMA guy and I did jiu-jitsu from the age of seven, but I have always liked stand-up fighting and I think my aggressive style fits well for GLORY.
“I don’t know a lot about my opponent but it doesn’t matter anyway. I am just going to do what I do: forward pressure, go on the attack, make him break, look for the finish. This is my first GLORY fight but there will be more. I want to be a champion, that’s what I am working towards.”
Silva’s opponent is John King of Amarillo, Texas, a former football player who also has MMA experience, albeit not to the level that Silva has. King says he is going in to Friday’s fight looking to take a big-name scalp and elevate his own name in the process.
The fight goes down on the GLORY 48 NEW YORK card on Friday, December 1 and airs live on ESPN 3 at 10pm ET
