GLORY 19 takes place later tonight (Fri., Feb. 6, 2015) from Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The Spike TV-televised fight card features a heavyweight title fight between Rico Verhoeven and Errol Zimmerman, as well as a one-night, four-man Welterweight tournament.
On Thursday evening, MMAFighting.com 's Dave Meltzer reported that the kickboxing promotion reached a three-event deal with CBS Sports Network to air its "Superfight Series" on Friday nights on a one-week tape delay.
GLORY's "Superfight Series" serves as the "Prelims" under card before the main card airs on Spike TV.
GLORY CEO Jon Franklin told MMAmania.com last month that a United States television deal for the "Prelims" portion of its fight cards was soon to be reached, but the promotion had not chosen a network at that time. Franklin announced today that CBS Sports -- the network that aired several of the earlier GLORY cards, including GLORY 4, GLORY 10 and the "Superfight Series" from GLORY 16 -- would air the "Superfight Series," starting with tonight's GLORY 19 card in Hampton.
The cards won't air prior to the GLORY cards on Spike TV. Instead, they will run via tape delay one week after the event on the following Friday in the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. ET time slot.
"The Spike audience, while it's sports fans, we usually come out of 'Cops' (the lead-in), not another sports event," Franklin said. "With CBS Sports, we'll come out of hockey or basketball, so we'll have mainstream sports fans exposed to GLORY."
Franklin had told MMAmania.com prior to the deal that airing the "Superfight Series" in the United States would be a great way to "help build the brand and help expose the fighters."
And one of GLORY's best Lightweight stars, Andy Ristie, will take on Steve Moxon on the upcoming "Superfight Series," leading up to the GLORY 19 main card. Ristie is definitely a fighter on the roster who the promotion wants to reach the masses. The Dutch-Suriname fighter lost to Davit Kiria at GLORY 14 Zagreb after a five-round war that was a "Fight of the Year" candidate. Ristie also knocked out Giorgio Petroysan and current champion, Robin van Roosmalen, at GLORY 12: "New York" to win the night's four-man Lightweight tournament.
In addition to Ristie-Moxon, Canadian standout Josh Jauncey will face Max Baumert in another Lightweight contest.
The GLORY "Superfight Series" has had a strong international presence, airing in more than 40 countries worldwide. It was previously available for the United States audience to stream via the GLORYWorldSeries.com website at a later date, but now those fans will get to see it on a cable network that reaches over 96 million homes and airs college football and basketball.