Dubai World Trade Centre bears witness to a kickboxing extravaganza

From back-and-forth title fights to knockouts in the SuperFight Series, Glory 20 delivered an entertainment- filled event at Dubai World Trade Centre on Friday night.

The headline bout featured a much-anticipated rematch which saw no love lost as Robin van Roosmalen retained the lightweight title and defeated Andy Ristie with a unanimous decision, 49-44, 49-44, 49-44.

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Despite challenging for the belt, Ristie entered as the favourite, having beaten Van Roosmalen by knockout at Glory 12 in 2013. While Ristie held the advantage with his reach and unorthodox style, Van Roosmalen regained the edge by lengthening the bout and turning his opponent into a “three-round fighter”.

“The first time I think I let him play too much his game. Tonight I did what I had to do. I followed my heart and this is what happened,” said Van Roosmalen.

“I know I’m physically strong and I know he starts fast, so in the first round I just wanted to wait, have him attack me, have a good defence and build up the tempo.

“After the fight, I talked to him saying it was a great fight and he said ‘you cheat, you use drugs I heard’. “So I said ‘okay let’s go, let’s take a test and let us check’.

That’s why I was upset. I know I’m the real champion so I proved it now.” The other championship fight on the night was won by Gabriel Varga as he earned Glory’s first featherweight title.

The Canadian got the better of Mosab Amrani by unanimous decision, 50-46, 48-47, 49-46, in an unrelenting bloodbath. While Amrani – blood flowing from a cut on his face – tried to end the fight with a decisive blow, Varga held his ground and his timely shots were enough to give him the most significant win of his career.

“I knew that cardio would be a big thing. I tried to have a smart fight and not just stand there and bash him. That made a big difference,” Varga said.

“That was just my goal. I had a lot of people asking me ‘you have this title fight coming up, how excited are you to win the title?’ I went, ‘I wasn’t even thinking of that.’ My goal was just to beat him because of his name and how much he’s done in the sport. I think this will push me up the world stage, just having beat him.”

Simon Marcus, meanwhile, secured his spot for the middleweight championship by coming out on top of the four-man middleweight tournament. Marcus first got past Wayne Barrett with a unanimous decision, 29-28, 29-28, 30-27, before taking down Alex Pereira in the final, 28-27, 28-27, 29-28, displaying his retooled boxing skills.

The Canadian will now take on middleweight title holder Artem Levin for championship in Glory 21 on May 8.

In the undercard, the SuperFight Series included three knockouts, with Anatoly Moiseev finishing Max Baumert in 38 seconds, Samir Boukhidous beating Mikhail Chalykh in two minutes and Chi Lewis- Parry setting a record by dropping Yong-Su Park in just 25 seconds in his Glory debut.


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