Contributor: Lucas Bourdon
Last year, Glory made a trip to Istanbul that produced one of their finest cards of the year. This saturday, they’re coming back with another card that looks like it might top Glory 6. The highlight of the card is the lightheavyweight tournament featuring local favorite Gokhan Saki coming down from heavyweight and top P4P talent and winner of the previous LHW tournament Tyrone Spong. Rounding out the card is the debut of Superkombat cruiserweight champion Andrei Stoica against Danyo Ilunga and the meeting betwwen 22 year old Marat Grigorian and established top lightweight Robin Van Roosmalen.
In the first semi final, meeting Tyrone Spong is 28-2 Brazilian fighter, Saulo Cavalari. Cavalari made a name for himself by brutally knocking out Mourad Bouzidi at Glory 12. He’s a powerful puncher with some devastating low kicks, his power makes him a dangerous opponent but he tends to throw single strikes and this lack of combination striking doesn’t bode well against a brilliant technician like Spong and I expect the King of the Ring to advance to the finals.
On the other side of the bracket, Nathan “Carnage” Corbett meets Gokhan Saki, after facing Spong in his Glory debut, the Muay 
Thai fighter keeps getting tough fights, especially as elbows, by far his best weapons, are illegal in Glory. Corbett brings a brutal, no-nonsense style and some serious toughness to the ring but speed, power, familiarity with the rules and hometown advantage are all on Saki’s side. I expect Corbett to put up a valiant effort but to ultimately get stopped by the local hero, setting up Spong vs Saki final in a rematch of their 2009 fight in K-1. Their first fight, Spong’s first real test as a heavyweight, ended with knocking out Spong in the extra round after 3 extremely close rounds. I think the fight will be close once again, but Spong has grown as a fighter since their first encounter and should be able to take his revenge and the light heavyweight crown.
In the tournament’s reserve fight, last year’s finalist Danyo Ilunga will welcome Andrei Stoica to Glory. Both are fine technicians and the fight seems like a toss up to me but Stoica likely has an edge in punching power that makes me lean towards him in this match up.
And lastly in the main event, Robin Van Roosmalen takes on Marat Grigorian in what promises to be an excellent fight. Glory fans should be well acquainted to Van Roosmalen as he holds a 7-2 record in the promotion overwhelming everyone he faced apart from Petrosyan and Ristie in tournament finals. On the other hand, at just 22, Grigorian already has some solid experience on the European circuit and just handed top prospect Chingiz Allazov his first loss. Stylistically both are aggressive fighters but where Grigorian favors a volume striking approach, Van Roosmalen is more looking to land power punches. Van Roosmalen edge in high level and power should give him the advantage here, but don’t count out Marat Grigorian who should have an excellent career in Glory regardless of the outcome of tonight’s fight.
The card should be excellent and the usual Superfight Series should provide some interesting fights too, most notably a featherweight clash between Yodkhunpon Sitmonchai, a Thai fighter whose aggressive style focused more on punching than what is usually expected from Thai fighters should be very well suited to kickboxing rules and Raz Sarkisjan, a very exciting pressure fighter who holds a previous win over top featherweight Masaaki Noiri (an excellent fight that I encourage you to watch here.
-Lucas can be reached @lucas_bourdon.
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