With a little more than three weeks to go until the opening bell, things weren’t looking great for GLORY Kickboxing’s supposed-to-be monumental GLORY 100 show. It was ambitiously scheduled as a two-night mega-card for June 13th and 14th at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena in the Netherlands; but on May 20, Beyond Kickboxing reported that the show was being scaled back to one night (June 14th) due to low ticket sales, meaning several fights slated for the original card would have to be canceled.

Even in its downsized form, GLORY 100 was a stacked card. On paper, it was still worthy of its billing as the biggest show in the history of the company that was founded in 2012 and has been home to legendary fighters like Alex Pereira, Israel Adesanya, Badr Hari, and Giorgio Petrosyan. Ultimately, despite the promotional hiccup, GLORY 100 lived up to the hype and delivered the best kickboxing show of the year.

Four championship bouts headlined the card this past Saturday, which also featured the second phase of the Last Heavyweight Standing tournament.

In the main event, GLORY world heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven successfully defended his title against former light heavyweight champion Artem Vakhitov in a five-round unanimous decision. You’d think the older (36 years to 34) and much heavier (265 to 220) Rico would be naturally slower and thus not as active as Vakhitov, and yet the champion set out from jump to bury his challenger in a swarm of punches and kicks. Verhoeven (66-10, 21 KOs) landed over 100 more strikes; while he never really rocked Vakhitov or had him in danger of a knockout, the “King of Kickboxing” — who hasn’t lost a fight since 2015 — simply put on a clinic. He was faster, stronger, more aggressive, and basically treated a world-class opponent like a heavy bag during a training session.

Featherweight world champion Petpanomrung Kiatmuukao, a.k.a. “Petch,” showed why his other a.k.a. is “The Professor” … and why he could also be nicknamed “The Surgeon” or “The Bus Driver” or “The Blade” or like five other things. Defending his GLORY title against Miguel Trindade, Petch was just about flawless. In a clean sweep unanimous decision, he neutered Trindade’s explosive one-punch knockout power and delivered some heat of hia own: Petch knocked Trindade down twice in the second round, once with a left hand to the body and then with a perfectly executed question-mark kick.

Middleweight champion Donovan Wisse retained his title by split decision over Michael Boapeah. It was a close fight that could’ve gone either way — I was actually surprised that Wisse won it, and Boapeah looked devastated — but it was easily the most forgettable of GLORY 100‘s championship bouts.

Saturday’s lone title change saw light heavyweight champion Tarik Khbabez get stopped by Sergej Maslobojev in the fourth round. Similar to the heavyweight title clash, Maslobojev (38) was the older man, but was quicker and more active than the younger Khbabez (33). The challenger pummeled the champion with leg kicks and withstood some big-time shots as Khbabez tried to punch his way back into the fight, but Maslobojev eventually wore him down to the point where he simply couldn’t stand up any longer.

In the Last Heavyweight Standing tournament — which began at GLORY 99 in April with 16 first-round matches — GLORY 100 featured four tourney-within-a-tourney brackets, made up of fighters who prevailed at GLORY 99, from which four winners would emerge and advance to the LHS finals in December. (Cem Caceres was entered as an injury replacement for first-round winner Tomas Mozny.) To win their respective bracket, a fighter would have to win two matches in one night. At the eight-main final in December, they’ll have to win three matches in one night to win the whole tournament.

Mory Kromah was surprisingly the tournament star of the night. After cruising to a decision victory over Alin Nechita in his first fight on Saturday, Kromah — who normally fights at light heavyweight — was matched up against Bahram Rajabzadeh, the No. 3-ranked heavyweight in the world by Beyond Kickboxing and a popular favorite to win the entire Last Heavyweight Standing tournament. Bahram came out so aggressive he was dangerously reckless; two times in the first round he kneed Kromah in the head while Kromah was on the mat, an illegal move that could draw a disqualification. After the referee didn’t even bother taking away a point after the second illegal knee, Kromah shoved Rajabzadeh, which almost ignited a brawl between their supporters. GLORY officials leapt into the ring to diffuse things, and ultimately Bahram did have a point taken away. (Keep in mind, this is still the first round.) Even though the fighters hugged before the bout resumed, Kromah attacked like he had a score to settle. To cap a wild flurry of action, Kromah landed a flying (and legal) knee to Bahram’s temple that put him down for the count and gave Kromah a thrilling upset win.

Tariq “Cookie” Osaro might be the new odds-on favorite after Bahram’s elimination. Cookie stunned and stopped Luigj Gashi with one punch in his first fight of the night, then KO’d Sofian Laidouni to win his bracket. I had Sofian as a dark horse favorite to win the whole thing after he looked incredible at GLORY 99, but he looked totally outclassed against Osaro.

The other two heavyweights advancing to December’s final were Nico Pereira Horta and Anis Bouzid.