Golden Glory Rocks Serbia on Orthodox New Year!
Semmy Schilt did not fight at the Dynamite show in Japan, instead he fought in Serbia 12 days later in a new event called Lord of Ring.
Few people had hearred of a new promoter from the Balkan, but it was clear that Golden Glory had a great prescense in this event.
For the first time this promoter showed an unbelievable effort to prove he is one of the biggest
Promoters for the new year 2008. The best Arena in Belgrade was hired , the whole city had huge bilbords with Semmy Schilt and the name of the event. When I arrived with the Golden Glory team we were recocinzed every were. People just stopped on the streets with their taxis holding up traffic, running towards Semmy to take a picture with their mobile phones. Police, restaurant owners,old people everybody knew Semmy and Golden Glory. It was a crazy schedule by an ambitious promoter, everyday we woke up at 6 o’clock in the morning (not really ideal for a fighter as Semmy who was fighting the main event) as we had to be present at morning breakfast shows at live tv in Serbia. Then an hour break to go to the next tv show, lunch was served at a friends restaurant of the promoter were I ate the best steak of my life. All the fighters and corner ate their daily meal at the same restaurant. When everybody entered the arena on the day of the fight we all had the feeling of Japan. Huge Arena with great sound and a huge stage and laser show, the dressing rooms. The Dressing rooms were filled with fresh fruit and even hot chicken with rice was dizivered to the dressing rooms, which had a tv with the live feed of the event. The organization was really amazing for the first time, all fights were quick and on a strikt time schedule. The event was broadcasting 1 hour later on Serbian TV.
For the old pride lovers, the MMA rules were old pride rules, which means: are allowed foot stomps, soccer kicks and knees to the head to an opponent on the ground, welcome to Serbia!!!
The program existed at K-1 fights and MMA fights and the event strated with the introduction of all the fighters, when Semmy entered the Arena the athmospherre was electric the people went crazy and this was only his introduction!
Discription of some of the 14 fights from this event:
K-1:Daniel Nordaas (NOR) vs Murthel Groenhart (SUR) Nordaas traint in Holland and so does Murthel for their preparation when they fight. The fight started with both fighters connecting some good shots. The Murthel starts his famous agressive style (Manhoef in his coner) and lands two beautifull jumping right knees to the head of Nordaas. The doktor stops the fight after 1 minute 15 in the first round because of a cut! Winner Murthel.
MMA:Valentijn Overeem (HOL) Golden Glory vs Sasa Lazic (SRB)
Valentijn retruns to the ring after more then 2 years and shows why his knick name use to be and still is the phyton. In less the 1 minute he armbars the strong Serbian fighter and wins the fight!
MMA:Nikolay Onikienko (RUS) vs Michael Knaap (HOL)
Nikolay is known in Holland as he deafeated Rondney Faverus and Dave dalgliesh and he won several 8 men tournaments in Russia. Knaap had some difficulties and came from his defeat from Alistair Overeem last year and is dropping wait to go down to 205. Michael is a caractor and show man with great enterences, currently trains with Semmy Schilt in Holland.
The fights starts with both fighter landing some shots when finally Nikolay gets the take down, Knaap is defending well and after a little while the fighters are stood up by the ref. It is Nikolay who wants to go for the take down but a beautifull timed knee by Michael opens his forehead wide open and the fight is immidiatley stopped. Winner by TKO in round 1 Michael Knaap from Team Schilt!
MMA:Andrey Rudakov (RUS) vs Jason Jones (HOL)
Rudakov is a great fighter who never refuses a fight (fights most of the time heavier oponents) he is winner of three 8 men tournaments in Russia and holds a wij over Semenov!
Jason Jones (HOL) is an upcoming fighter from the dicipline of Judo and has great ground controlls. Rudakov who sometimes prepares at the Golden Glory gym in Breda had been working on his stand up. Great matchmaking by Cor hemmers from Golden Glory who was the matchmaker from this event.
The first round is a great display of MMA at its best, it has stand up, take down, take down defence, reversals and a lot of action. The fight is pretty even but Jones is the better fighter on the ground and hols about 8kilo over Rudakov, who still manages to get almost a kimura and triangle. In round two again Jones gets the take down and gets side controll. He chokes the russian from the side controll and the ref is two second to late to avoid unconciously. Winner by sleeper Jason Jones. Rudakov should stick fighting to 85 kilo, he lost but showed great skills.
K-1:Nikola Dimkovski (SRB) vs Azziz Jah Jah (MAR)
Azziz is the winner of the Paris $100.000 tournament and moved up in weight class. Nikola is a strong boxer from Serbia and this fight became one of the fights of the night. Azziz scoring with low kicks and punches but Nikola always looking for the counter. This goes on for the first two rounds till round three starts. Azizz opens an offinsive with strikes which is countered by Nikola who lands a huge bomb right on the chin of Aziz, all 9000 Serbian fans went crazy. Azziz stood up with the count of 8 and the fight continues but instead of holding his openent to recover from the down he starts another offensive, brave but not smart he gets caught with a hard left hook and is counted out. Winner by ko Nikola Dimkovski who made a very strong impression and I am sure we will find him back in some future K-1 events. Azziz showed a great fight and missed some fighting rhytum with his win over Breggy and other fighters with name we also will see him this year in a qualification tournament. Great fight from both fighters.
MMA: Mathieu ten Dam (HOL) vs Maurice Luiendijk (HOL) MMA
Mathieu is fighting for the first time, this former basketball player (8 years in the US) is a giant ala Hong men Choi. With a height of 2 meter 20 cm his opent maurice looked like a dwarf.
Not really a match, a feww huge knees landing target and the ref stops the fight in less then 1 minute. Winner on tko Mathieu ten Dam.
MMA: Goce Sandovski (MAC) vs Denis Stojnic (BIH) Golden Glory
The night went really smoothly sofar till this fight with Dennis from Bosnia H (Golden Glory).
His fight against Gorce from Macedonia (who sometimes prepares with Mevin Manhoef in Holland) is one for the books of history.
Dennis strats the fight with agression and a vicious attack which took about 1 minute long. The poor Goce (he showed hart by not giving up) recieved a great deal of pain from Dennis, who did not stop his attack producing. soccer kicks, punches on the ground a la Fedor and footstomps. The ref stopped the fight (I think the corner should have) and a huge swallen eye and more demage is shown on the face of Goce. Dennis is happy and runs to the corner putting up his pointing finger (as pride) but this is interrpetated as a bg “fuck you” to the Serbian audience and anybody who knows a little about Bosnians and Serbs, I do not have to explain you what happened next. It was a mirrical that the third war did not break out, Dennis was brought under protection back to the Golden Glory dresing room were he quickly removed the names on the door of the dressing room. Still about 40 Serbs entered the dressing room after the fight, were finally everything was solved by good communication that it was all a misunderstanding. Great fight from Dennis who has a record now of 12 fights eleven wins with 10 ko’s.
K-1: Michael Andrade (CPV) vs Stefan Leko (CRO) Golden Glory
The first fight of Stefan leko after his controversial loss against remy Bonjansky at the K-1 Qualification in Korea. Stefan fought a good fight against the really talented young fighter Michael who impressed everybody in the first round by showing great boxing skills with good high kicks. In the second round it is Stefan who is putting more and more pressure and landing some vicious body shots. Michael is caught with a liver shot and receives an 8 count from the referee. The fight continues but Leko proffesionally finishes the fight with another series of punches to the body, winner by tko Stefan leko from Golden Glory in round two. Stefan announched that he would be operrated on his knee and would be out for at least 7 months. Bad news for Stefan who showed that he is still the BLITZ!
MMA:Guelmino Nandor (AUT) vs Semmy Schilt (HOL) Golden Glory
The enterence of Schilt was amazing, the Serbian press and audience realy like Semmy and it was really impressive for the Golden Glory team to be invited to a country were no Golden Glory fighter ever fought before and receive such a good welcome and applause.
The fighter from Austria was not really smaal compared to schilt, his weight was almost 110 kilo and 1 meter 92 cm.
Guelmino came to find but soon was to find out why Semmy is also a very good MMA fighter. The stand up was dominated by Semmy which as expected. Two minutes into the fight we can see almost a standing choke by Semmy but Guelmino escaped. Then Guelmino gets the take down in the corner and mounts Schilt and the surprise is heared in the audience with aaaaaaaaahh.
The fight is contineud on the center of the ring on the ground afeter a break by the referee. Guelmino in the full mount by Semmy, Semmy stays calmm and pulls the fighter from Austria to him to immidiatley aply a nice reversal. Semmy is now on top and strat a ground and pound offensive. In 2.45 seconds Semmy is winner by GNP and his first MMA fight is won in the new year of 2008.
It was really difficult to walk away from the ring, Semmy took after the winning ceremony a Serbian child in his arms and lots of pictures were taken. Semmy stole the hearts of the Serbian people, they sure love fighters! Great night of fights and props to the organization. This was the first event of 5 more to come this year! Watch out for this Balkan promoter, he knows what he is doing!
by Bas Boon Photo’s (c) Dragon Trifunovic Belgrade and Bas Boon www.goldenglory.com
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