Croatia’s Antonio Plazibat has dropped out of the GLORY Heavyweight Grand Prix due to injury. He will be replaced by Nordine Mahieddine, of France. The tournament goes down on Mar. 9 in Arnhem, Netherlands.
GLORY Heavyweight Grand Prix Update
It has been rumored for some time that the top-ranked striker Antonio Plazibat was likely to withdraw from the tournament due to an arm injury, which he sustained in his last bout against “Cookie” Tariq Osaro. The question in the kickboxing community everyone wanted to know was who would replace him.
Reported initially by Vechtsportinfo, and confirmed by GLORY later on, Plazibat’s replacement will be Nordine Mahieddine. Mahieddine is fresh off of his head kick knockout win against Abdarhmane Coulibaly, which was one of the best knockouts of 2023.
Mahieddine was initially booked as a reserve fight against Benjamin Adegbuyi. Now, Romania’s Adegbuyi will meet Cihad Kepenek, of Turkey.
The Mar. 9 GLORY Heavyweight Grand Prix line is now:
Rico Verhoeven (60-10, 20 KO)
Tariq Osaro (25-3-1, 13 KO)
Levi Rigters (15-1, 7 KO)
Uku Jürjendal (20-8, 16 KO)
Bahram Rajabzadeh (65-1, 58 KO)
Nabil Khachab (26-4-1, 4 KO)
Sofian Laïdouni (35-2-1, 17 KO)
Nordine Mahieddine (28-15-0, 13 KO)
No matchups have yet been confirmed but a draw is set to take place on Jan 31 to set up the matches.
Most pundits believed the tournament replacement was to be Jamal Ben Saddik. After the announcement many fans were outraged that the replacement was not Morocco’s Ben Saddik. Fans flooded the Instagram comments of GLORY with their complaints. With so many complaints GLORY was forced to offer an update on the fighter, they explained: “UPDATE 2: GLORY have decided Jamal Ben Saddik’s return in March would come too soon. As a result, Jamal will not participate in the upcoming GLORY Heavyweight Grand Prix. There are currently ongoing discussions about his comeback and an announcement will be made soon, so keep an eye out.”