Later tomorrow (June 5th, 2015) in Lille, France, GLORY 22 will be coming at you live on Spike TV at 4pm Eastern time. It’s a rare live European event from the world’s premier kickboxing organization and the event is featuring a Lightweight Contender’s tournament as well as the GLORY Heavyweight Championship on the line. It should be an exciting night of fights and the two featured bouts of the evening are Zack Mwekassa squaring off against Bellator veteran Carlos Brooks and Romania’s Benjamin Adegbuyi challenging champion Rico Verhoeven for the GLORY Heavyweight Championship. The featured bout of the evening is between the South African bruiser that is Zack Mwekassa (12-2-0) and MMA and WCL veteran Carlos Brooks (9-1-0). The odds from sportsbook Several Bookmakers.eu places Mwekassa as the odds-on favorite heading into this bout and it comes as no surprise, really. Mwekassa has opened up at -555 while Brooks is sitting at +365 at the moment according to the latest odds on Several Bookmakers. Mwekassa has the better experience both in kickboxing and in boxing, with big wins in kickboxing over Pat Barry and Brian Collette while Brooks has primarily been involved in lower level fights and a few MMA fights here and there. The safe money seems to be on Mwekassa and Mwekassa winning through a spectacular knockout. In the main event the GLORY Heavyweight Championship will be contested between Romanian challenger Benjamin Adegbuyi (19-2-0) and champion Rico Verhoeven (45-10-1). Verhoeven is coming off of a title defense at GLORY 19 over Errol Zimmerman while Adegbuyi is coming off of a series of wins since he joined the organization, including a big win over Hesdy Gerges. Sportsbook Several Bookmakers.eu currently has Rico Verhoeven as the favorite at -385, with expectations that Verhoeven will frustrate the contender with a superior technical battle. Adegbuyi currently sits at +265 and it is fair to say that he has more than a puncher’s chance against the champion. Many expect Adegbuyi to look for a wild knockout, but he’s been more even-tempered of late and expect him to look for the knockout against Verhoeven, but to not be reckless. These fights, on top of the GLORY Lightweight contender’s tournament featuring Davit Kiria, Josh Jauncey, Djime Coulibaly and Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong should make for an entertaining night of fights. Expect fireworks from Mwekassa and expect the new generation of kickboxing’s elite heavyweights to display their talent and drive here at GLORY 22.
