PINCA, WATSON, SATO added to Glory 3 Rome

Three of Italy’s top ris­ing stars – Mustapha Haida (18–1), Marco Re (20–3, 13 KO’s) and Alessan­dro Cam­pagna (29–5, 14 KO’s)– are amongst the fight­ers that have been tabbed to com­pete in two Super­fights as well as two tour­na­ment reserve fights at the highly-anticipated GLORY 3 Rome ‘Final 8’ (70 kg) cham­pi­onship kick­box­ing event at the iconic PalaLot­tomat­ica venue on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 3.

Haida will face off with Muay Thai pow­er­house Jor­dan Wat­son (29–5-1, 14 KO’s) of Eng­land at 70 kg (154 pounds) in one of the two Super­fights and Re will col­lide with the ver­sa­tile Alka Matewa (43–6-1, 23 KO’s) of Bel­gium in the other at 72.5 kg (160 pounds).

In the first of two 70 kg tour­na­ment reserve bouts for the card’s eight-man tour­na­ment, Fight of the Year can­di­date Dzhabar Askerov (73–28-1, 37 KO’s) of Rus­sia will take on stand­out Yoshi­hiro Sato (49–18, 20 KO’s) of Japan while flam­boy­ant, mas­ter tech­ni­cian and sea­soned star Fabio Pinca (85–17-4, 32 KO’s) of France clashes with fast-rising, 20-year-old Cam­pagna, who has been dubbed one of the world’s top prospects.

Both reserve matches will be fought before the Final 8 quar­ter­fi­nal round tour­na­ment matches take place. Should any vic­to­ri­ous fighter, or fight­ers, be too injured to advance to the next round of the tour­na­ment, their spot will be offered to the fighter they pre­vi­ously defeated. If that fighter can­not con­tinue either, a tour­na­ment reserve bout win­ner will be sub­sti­tuted into the tournament.

“The fight­ers mak­ing their way to the GLORY ring on Novem­ber 3 are the absolute best in the world in their weight class and are fight­ing not only for their own glory but for that of their nations,” said GLORY Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Mar­cus Luer. “The upcom­ing event has an incred­i­ble mix of cham­pi­ons and hun­gry, young tal­ent that want to take their spot on the world stage. I have no doubt that the action will be fast and explosive.”

Super­fights:

Jor­dan Wat­son vs. Mustapha Haida

Wat­son has been going from strength to strength on the way to becom­ing one of the England’s top fight­ing tal­ents. He has an attack­ing style and a great deal of power, which has led to him knock­ing more than half of his oppo­nents out. In his last fight, he thrilled British fans with a stand­out per­for­mance, includ­ing a thun­der­ous head-kick, on the way to a com­fort­able deci­sion win over Hamed Assan of France.

Haida, orig­i­nally from Morocco but based in Italy, has enjoyed an almost unbeaten run on the Ital­ian cir­cuit, where his fluid and tech­ni­cal style has been impres­sive. Wat­son has the power advan­tage and far more expe­ri­ence, which means Haida will have to be on top of his game and fight­ing clev­erly to get the win.

Marco Re vs. Alka Matewa

With 13 of his 20 wins com­ing by way of knock­out, Re’s record lends tes­ti­mony to his level of power. Re also brings to the ring great tim­ing ‚which allows him to land attacks and coun­ter­at­tacks very pre­cisely, often kick­ing an opponent’s leg out from under them while they are attempt­ing to kick him.

Like Re, Matewa has stopped more than half of his oppo­nents. An expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sional, Matewa works hard on his hands and he has a good level of box­ing abil­ity and good head move­ment. He doesn’t have the same flair that Re does but he has a high work rate and has demon­strated his will­ing­ness to trade blows with opponents.

Tour­na­ment Reserve Fights:

Dzhabar Askerov vs. Yoshi­hiro Sato

Askerov has won over legions of fans with a super aggres­sive style of fight­ing that spawns round after round of non-stop action and attacking.

Sato is, in some ways, almost the oppo­site of Askerov. He is a cere­bral fighter and does not rush in to trade shots. Instead he likes to pick his oppo­nents apart and use his range advan­tage, work­ing away at their legs and body with kicks and knees.

This fight is like a meet­ing of fire and ice and their strengths and weak­nesses play well against each other. Askerov some­times strug­gles to defend his legs because he is plant­ing his feet to let his hands go, while Sato’s main weak­ness is prob­a­bly that he is rel­a­tively easy to hit for a fighter with good hands.

Both fight­ers are deter­mined to notch a vic­tory after suf­fer­ing defeats in their respec­tive bouts at GLORY: First 16 in May. Askerov’s fight with Robin Van Roos­malen in the event was a three-round war and an instant clas­sic which fans around the world imme­di­ately declared a pos­si­ble Fight of the Year.

Fabio Pinca vs. Alessan­dro Campagna

Pinca is a tremen­dously excit­ing tal­ent and he has an unusu­ally wide arse­nal of tech­niques at his dis­posal. If the oppor­tu­nity for a spin­ning back-fist is there Pinca will take it as eas­ily as he throws a jab. Pinca is very good at work­ing his oppo­nents all over and he has stopped nearly half of them inside the distance.

Ear­lier this year, he took a win over the world’s best Muay Thai fighter Saen­chai, a tes­ta­ment to Pinca’s remark­ably com­plete skills. He is a dif­fi­cult propo­si­tion for any of the world’s top fight­ers and he will def­i­nitely have some tricks to show his young Ital­ian opponent.

Cam­pagna is tak­ing a huge step up in oppo­si­tion for this fight, but he has shown his wor­thi­ness of doing so by earn­ing wins over sev­eral fight­ers with more expe­ri­ence and big­ger rep­u­ta­tions. Cam­pagna is big for the weight class and will have a size and range advan­tage on Pinca. He also shares a back­ground in Muay Thai with Pinca and is very fond of throw­ing hard punches to the head to cre­ate an open­ing for knees to the midsection.

Tick­ets for GLORY 3 Rome ‘Final 8’ event, priced from € 27.50, are avail­able for pur­chase online at www.ticketone.it.

The Super­fights and reserve matches round out a card head­lined by the world’s top 70 kg fight­ers com­pet­ing in a one-night single-elimination tour­na­ment to deter­mine the best of the best, with a $300,000 grand prize at stake for the win­ner. The tour­na­ment draw fea­tures Gior­gio ‘The Doc­tor’ Pet­rosyan (71–1-2 (1 NC), 33 KO’s) of Italy, Albert “The Hur­ri­cane” Kraus (66–16-3, 39 KO’s) of Nether­lands, Robin “Poker Face” van Roos­malen (35–13-3, 10 KO’s) of Nether­lands; Shemsi Beqiri (71–7, 31 KO’s) of Switzer­land, Ky Hol­len­beck (34–7, 21 KO’s) of USA, Tim Thomas.(60–1-9, 35 KO’s) of Eng­land, Davit Kiria (18–7, 10 KO’s) of Nether­lands and Sanny Dahlbeck (24–4, 14 KO’s) Sweden.

The matchups for the quar­ter­fi­nal round of the tour­na­ment will be deter­mined in a ran­dom draw, the details of which will be announced soon.

Doors at PalaLot­tomat­ica will open at 18:00 local time for the Final 8 event. The first pre­lim­i­nary bout will begin at 19:00 and the first main card bout will begin at 20:30.