Van Soest stops Uslu to retain world title belt

Tiffany “Time Bomb” van Soest traveled to Chicago to make her first defense of the women’s super-bantamweight title belt that she won at GLORY COLLISION in December.    Opposite her was supposed to be Funda Alkayis of Turkey, but a late switch meant she was replaced by Meryem Uslu of Germany a week out. Van Soest’s weeks of preparations for Alkayis instantly became useless.   Uslu, fighting out of Hamburg in Germany, is an experienced competitor who has won several world titles in Muay Thai. She holds a win over Jessica Gladstone, who Van Soest beat in December on the way to winning the Women’s Grand Prix and her title belt.   Several things have carried Van Soest to the top of the women’s super-bantamweight division but footwork and positioning deserve particular credit. She is very good at both keeping herself out of harm’s way and putting herself into position to do harm to the opponent.   Van Soest’s volume of output is also very high, which has her racking up points constantly and at the same time chipping away doing damage to the opponent. Not all of those shots are chippy though - Van Soest is one of the most powerful women in the division.   Going into this fight she was the only female fighter on the GLORY roster who had scored a knockdown in the organization. Tonight she went one better by scoring a knockdown that turned into a finish.    It came in the fourth round.    Over the course of the second and third rounds Van Soest had been steadily applying the pressure and breaking Uslu down, checking her forward momentum and forcing her onto the back foot.    Shortly after the start of the fourth she backed Uslu up, found a clear opening and let fly a rear leg push-kick to Uslu’s face. It was a powerful shot and it landed cleanly, staggering Uslu backwards.    Van Soest followed up immediately, flurrying on a falling Uslu and then hitting her with clinch knees. Uslu fell backwards into the ropes and they saved her from falling over, prompting the referee to step in to administer a count.    He made it several seconds into the count before he saw something which made him wave the fight off. Uslu did not protest the stoppage and Van Soest added a new record to her list: she is now the first female fighter in GLORY to score a stoppage win.   Tiffany van Soest def. Meryem Uslu, TKO, R4 0:36