Glory 51 Rotterdam: Badr vs Hesdy II

If Badr can keep his mental stability in check for 6 months he beats Rico all day every day. Rico is a great champion but don't make him some world beater. The death of K-1 left the HW kickboxing scene shallow but of course it's not Rico's fault.

right, ok
what was the result of their first fight though, remind me?
 
lol at this nonsense

spong hasn't been fighting as a natural middleweight at any point in the last.... i dont know... TEN YEARS? There are 21 year olds watching him today who were infants when he started moving up in weight and have never even heard of him fighting at middle or below.

maybe you should reach out to him and explain to him what he's been doing wrong this past 10+ years and who you think he's allowed to think he can fight and beat

Spong was a beast as a middleweight. K-1 had this fųcked up structure of only two weight classes (world max 70kg and the unlimited heavies). He was too big for 70kg but truth is he was too small for heavy. I remember we waited for years while he was bulking up to make 90kg to fight with Kyotaro and Saki in a tournament organized by K-1 exclusively for these guys. Pound for pound (I hate this term) Spong is on top of the world but reality is he IS NOT a natural HW. To just remind you: he wasn't the top dog even at 90kg, Saki broke him. He bulked up and probably juiced for the K-1 WGP when he fought Overeem. Lost that fight even though he is levels above Overeem skillwise. Guess why? He WAS NOT a natural HW. It sucks that there are not big money involved in kickboxing. Spong could be a force at 84kg or maybe even have huge succes at 93kg. He was forced to become a heavyweight kickboxer and now is forced to become a boxer cuz our loved sport of kickboxing is not in its best days unfortunately. I like Spong and wish him all the best but I don't want to see him lose fights from guys who outsize him.
 
Journalists provoked him and of course he will say he'll fight him what do you expect he is a fighter. He was talking about Rico vs Badr. Spong is a great guy and phenomenal kickboxer but he is not a natural heavyweight. Badr breaks him and I don't want to see that.

You're a fool if you think that Spong didn't mean what he said or that he doesn't have a chance of winning.

Spong is bigger now than he was back in the day.

At this stage of Badr's career I'd bet on Spong to win actually.
 
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Spong was a beast as a middleweight. K-1 had this fųcked up structure of only two weight classes (world max 70kg and the unlimited heavies). He was too big for 70kg but truth is he was too small for heavy. I remember we waited for years while he was bulking up to make 90kg to fight with Kyotaro and Saki in a tournament organized by K-1 exclusively for these guys. Pound for pound (I hate this term) Spong is on top of the world but reality is he IS NOT a natural HW. To just remind you: he wasn't the top dog even at 90kg, Saki broke him. He bulked up and probably juiced for the K-1 WGP when he fought Overeem. Lost that fight even though he is levels above Overeem skillwise. Guess why? He WAS NOT a natural HW. It sucks that there are not big money involved in kickboxing. Spong could be a force at 84kg or maybe even have huge succes at 93kg. He was forced to become a heavyweight kickboxer and now is forced to become a boxer cuz our loved sport of kickboxing is not in its best days unfortunately. I like Spong and wish him all the best but I don't want to see him lose fights from guys who outsize him.

I agree to some extent with what you say about the fact that unfortunately Spong wasn't suited for either of K-1's only 2 weight classes unfortunately.

However if we talk about the present and basing my judgement on Badr's last 2 performances, I'd give Spong and Saki the edge over Badr. Call me crazy all you want but reality is I can see both of them beating today's Badr.
 
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He's talking about money in the sport compared to Boxing or MMA and he's kinda got a point there, gotta give him that.

We also have to admit that Kickboxing even though resurging, it's still not as mainstream as Boxing or MMA.
 
He's talking about money in the sport compared to Boxing or MMA and he's kinda got a point there, gotta give him that.

We also have to admit that Kickboxing even though resurging, it's still not as mainstream as Boxing or MMA.
Is kickboxing growing? How are glory ratings?
 
He's talking about money in the sport compared to Boxing or MMA and he's kinda got a point there, gotta give him that.
But to say he was forced to become a boxer because of the state of kickboxing is just...

Doubt in general it's been exactly financially super profitable for him so far. Going forward now, 4 years after his last kb fight, it might. But he could have been making more money in kb during that time.

We also have to admit that Kickboxing even though resurging, it's still not as mainstream as Boxing or MMA.
No doubt.

Still, KB might lack high pay opportunities in a broader manner but ok opportunities in general it does not.
 
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But to say he was forced to become a boxer is just...

And I mean what I said. Ah and Spong says in the video that he fights FOR MONEY. And i know guys like him and Holzken and others lately are not crossing over to boxing only for that. Spong could do every martial art he wanted, guy has talent and is a warrior. Plus Spong had issues with one of his legs if I'm not wrong.

And it's not just about money, it's about recognition too. Schilt, Bonjasky, Aerts and Hoost were superstars VIP level compared to our Glory HW champion today. I mean Gokhan Saki is not wrestling and learning submission defense because he can't win the Glory title. It's because he wants to be recognized when he wins something.
 
Is kickboxing growing? How are glory ratings?
Nowadays, I'm not sure that'll tell you much. I assume that what is going on in China right now would probably be a better measuring stick.
 
And I mean what I said. Ah and Spong says in the video that he fights FOR MONEY. And i know guys like him and Holzken and others lately are not crossing over to boxing only for that. Spong could do every martial art he wanted, guy has talent and is a warrior.

What you're talking about are choices.

Holzken has done things fairly smart. Keep making higher tier kb money and along with the growth of that in Holland he hasn't done half bad for himself. Box during the down times then if you want and do that silly boxing record building thing.

Plus Spong had issues with one of his legs if I'm not wrong.
Well you could probably say that yes.

And it's not just about money, it's about recognition too. Schilt, Bonjasky, Aerts and Hoost were superstars VIP level compared to our Glory HW champion today. I mean Gokhan Saki is not wrestling and learning submission defense because he can't win the Glory title. It's because he wants to be recognized when he wins something.
Saki first went to GFC to waste years seemingly out of spite for his pay getting lowered in Glory though... That for recognition too? :D


The main guys got paid more than they were worth by Glory early on. And what I mean by that as great a fighters as they might be they just didn't sell tickets or bring ratings so paying them multiple times what they were bringing in was more than they were worth. Oh well Glory and/or Spike still tried to brute force making it in America then too that didn't help either.

Then Glory figured they couldn't keep burning stupid amounts of money and toned things down. Naturally a bunch of those fighters weren't too happy to continue fighting for less money.

Some of them, like Saki, Spong and Ghita went away. Some to fight, some to post shitty motivational quotes and some to hug trees or whatever and across the board for less money. Again out of what I would say spite rather than for recognition or whatever else you're saying they did it for.

Holzken at the time wasn't happy either but IMO he made the smarter choice with the way he went on. I would wager he has made more money fighting compared to Saki or Spong.
 
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Is kickboxing growing? How are glory ratings?

I didn't say growing, I said resurging. There seems to be a lot more orgs and cards the last couple of years as opposed to the years prior to that. I don't know what the Glory ratings are but they're running cards a lot more often for sure. Then you have Kunlun, etc.
 
Going by something like Glory ESPN ratings you don't really see growth. Or maybe if you think of them doing more events now than they did before, even with smaller ratings per broadcast in total it maybe somewhat evens out. :p

But looking at it overall let's say just post 2016 we've had GoH that sprung up. That's a completely new entity on a new pretty big TV channel that didn't exist previously and they did something like a couple hundred fights in a bunch of countries last year. Main guys there make good money.

Emei done okay and seemingly growing.

We've had Bellator kb start up, they pay at least the main guys pretty well and that's another okay channel broadcasting kickboxing with Spike/Paramount. ONE Championship is starting to do some kickfighting. Probably broadcast somewhere? :D

K-1 definitely been growing and moved to bigger arenas.

Guess you could look at Glory too and overall, and specially in the US, they have some more butts on the seats at the events. They're on TV in more countries again also.

Kunlun on TV in more countries than a couple years ago and in English.

Enfusion has grown. WFL in Dutchieland seemingly done pretty okay too and that's new.


Only thing I can really think of that kb has lost recently was Eurosport that aired a bunch of promotions and the lack of that has seemingly affected at least a couple promotions a bit.
 
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Oh Kunlun, Wu Lin Feng and even GoH all do infinitely more amateur/rookie fight stuff than a couple years ago. Kunlun has built gyms and there's been a ton of kb by them that didn't exist at all just a few years ago. GoH is building gyms/event venues. Wu Lin Feng built/is building a big training center too.

Kickboxing lacks the clear high high of past K-1. No matter what Glory says they just ain't quite it, but there's more "good" kickboxing than ever before probably. Problem is the talent is spread way more though.
 
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Ideally we'd probably need a Chinese billionaire who liked kickboxing and did business internationally. He'd then need to somehow manage buy K-1 without insulting Mr. Kim, then also buy Glory and Kunlun and join them all up.

By chance anyone got a friend like that?
 
Going by something like Glory ESPN ratings you don't really see growth. Or maybe if you think of them doing more events now than they did before, even with smaller ratings per broadcast in total it maybe somewhat evens out. :p

But looking at it overall let's say just post 2016 we've had GoH that sprung up. That's a completely new entity on a new pretty big TV channel that didn't exist previously and they did something like a couple hundred fights in a bunch of countries last year. Main guys there make good money.

Emei done okay and seemingly growing.

We've had Bellator kb start up, they pay at least the main guys pretty well and that's another okay channel broadcasting kickboxing with Spike/Paramount. ONE Championship is starting to do some kickfighting. Probably broadcast somewhere? :D

K-1 definitely been growing and moved to bigger arenas.

Guess you could look at Glory too and overall, and specially in the US, they have some more butts on the seats at the events. They're on TV in more countries again also.

Kunlun on TV in more countries than a couple years ago and in English.

Enfusion has grown. WFL in Dutchieland seemingly done pretty okay too and that's new.


Only thing I can really think of that kb has lost recently was Eurosport that aired a bunch of promotions and the lack of that has seemingly affected at least a couple promotions a bit.
How does it feel to exceed 240 characters? Must feel like you're discussing Kickboxing on a superior platform...
 
Does Spong really make more money fighting journeyman boxers in front of like 50 people than he would in kickboxing?
 
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