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Friday, Oct 12, 2012

GLORY Signs Heavyweight Superstar Daniel Ghita

Daniel Ghita

Rising heavyweight star Rico Verhoeven also added to league’s ever-growing roster of top fighters

By FCF Staff

World championship kickboxing league GLORY announced today that it has signed top-ranked heavyweight superstar Daniel Ghita (44-7, 34 KO’s) of Romania and rising star and fellow heavyweight Rico Verhoeven (37-6-1, 8 KO’s) of the Netherlands to multi-fight, exclusive agreements.

The 31-year-old Ghita, the last reigning heavyweight champion for It’s Showtime before the league was acquired by GLORY in June, has terrorized the division of big men with his brutal leg kick attacks that have helped earn him an astonishing 77 percent KO rate and the nickname ‘The Savage Samurai.’

The 1.95 meter (6 foot 5), 114 kilogram (251 pound) Ghita, who fights out of the Romanian capital of Bucharest, is widely regarded as the greatest challenge to Semmy Schilt’s world No. 1 heavyweight ranking.

“I decided that GLORY is the best and only logical fit for me because this is where all of the best heavyweights in the world compete,” said Ghita, who had been sought after by several other leagues.  “If you want to be recognized as the best, you have to face and defeat the best and, as a true competitor, I have every intention of distinguishing myself as the No. 1 heavyweight in the world and a GLORY champion.”

“We are very excited to welcome Daniel Ghita to our highly-competitive heavyweight division,” said Marcus Luer, Managing Director of GLORY, in today’s announcement. “With the addition of Daniel, there is effectively not one top tier matchup in kickboxing’s heavyweight division that is not possible.”

The 1.95 meter (6 foot 5), 114 kilogram (250 pound) Verhoeven’s record includes two wins over Hesdy Gerges, a victory over top Australian heavyweight Ben Edwards and a win over fellow GLORY heavyweight rising star Filip Verlinden.

According to today’s announcement, both Ghita and Verhoeven could make their respective debuts for GLORY at the league’s highly-anticipated “Heavyweight Grand Slam” event at Makai Messe (former Nippon Convention Center) in Tokyo on December 2.  The event will be headlined by a 16-man single-elimination tournament loaded with a collection of the world’s top heavyweight kickboxers, including Schilt, Remy Bonjasky, Peter Aerts, Gokhan Saki, Errol Zimmerman, Sergei Kharitonov and Jerome LeBanner.

 

posted by FCF Staff @ 5:08 pm
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