The big hitters will be the centers of attention this week across the world of combat sports. Boxing, MMA, kickboxing, and Muay Thai have a full slate, and some of those shows may as well come with a warning sign that fighters must weigh at least 200 pounds to be in the main event.

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Kickboxing

GLORY, the promotional home of the man I believe is pound-for-pound the best heavyweight combat sports competitor on the planet, begins its Last Heavyweight Standing tournament on Saturday, April 5th, in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Rico Verhoeven, the aforementioned GLORY world heavyweight champion, will not be in the 32-man tournament — he’s training to defend his title at the GLORY 100 show in June. At GLORY 99 this weekend, first-round matches will be held in the tournament that will ultimately conclude in December.

According to Beyond Kick and Combat Press, the best fighter in the tournament (thus, the presumed favorite to win it) is Bahram Rajabzadeh. The 33-year-old Muslim, born in Iran and now representing Azerbaijan, is ranked No. 3 in the world among heavyweight kickboxers by those media outlets. Ranked fourth by BK and CP, and by default the second-best in the bracket, is Tariq “Cookie” Osaro of Nigeria, who had a shot at Rico’s title in November 2023 and lost via decision. Rade Opacic of Serbia, a newcomer to GLORY who just came over from ONE Championship, is the consensus No. 5 in the world and is also in the tournament.

Other notables entered into Last Heavyweight Standing include 34-year-old Jamal Ben Saddik, who recently came back from a two-year hiatus and is one of three Moroccan fighters in the field; Iraj Azizpour, another ONE Championship alum and one of two Iranian fighters involved; brothers Luigi Gashi and Asdren Gashi of Albania; Sofian Laidouni of France, a former champion in two other promotions; and rising star Nico Horta of Cape Verde.

Muay Thai

Over in ONE Championship, the ONE Fight Night 30 show on Friday, April 4th, will be headlined by a heavyweight title fight. Roman Kryklia (Ukraine) will defend his heavyweight Muay Thai world championship against Lyndon Knowles (United Kingdom) in Bangkok, Thailand.

Kryklia is the top heavyweight in the Combat Press Muay Thai rankings. Knowles is ranked fourth. Kryklia is a double-champion who also holds the ONE heavyweight kickboxing title. The 33-year-old is making his first defense of the Muay Thai title that he won in December 2023. He won the kickboxing title in 2019 and has defended it twice since then.

MMA

There’s a UFC Fight Night card on April 5th in Las Vegas. The main event is between top-10-ranked featherweights Josh Emmett and Lerone Murphy, but the show also features 15th-ranked heavyweight Kennedy Nzechukwu, who takes on Martin Buday.

The Professional Fighters League (PFL) kicks off its 2025 World Tournament series on Thursday, April 3rd, in Orlando, Florida. The welterweights and featherweights will be in action that day, while the heavyweights get started on May 1st.

Boxing

ESPN+ is running a show on April 5th with a heavyweight main event pitting Richard Torrez Jr., a 2021 Olympic silver medalist from the U.S., against Guido Vianello, a 2016 Olympian from Italy.

Also on April 5th, two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov, a Muslim from Uzbekistan, fights Ihor Shevadzutskyi of Ukraine on a show in Kazakhstan. That same day, former (current?) heavyweight contenders Joe Joyce and Filip Hrgovic headline a DAZN card in England.