Dubai: World champion Stefan ‘Blitz’ Leko has promised there will be “no mercy” when he squares up against the irrepressible Badr Hari in the Global Fighting Championship (GFC) next Thursday.
The Leko versus Hari fight has been termed an all-out revenge fixture on the main card of the third edition of the GFC to be held at the Zabeel Hall of Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) on May 29.
The GFC is being hosted by Golden Cage Promotions in association with the Dubai Sports Council (DSC). Next week’s GFC will consist of seven super fights with world-renowed Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) champions aiming to win a place in next year-end’s GFC Grand Prix and a four-man knockout tournament to win a cash prize of Dhs 1 million.
Hari and Leko will be joined by Peter Graham and Arnold Oborotov in the four-man contest, with the two winners facing each other in the final to decide the champion, who will earn a place in the GFC Grand Prix with a $1 million (Dh3.67 million) purse to be held at the end of 2015.
Leko and Hari have fought each other on two occasions. The Croatian-German was the first to beat Hari in K-1 by first round knockout in mid-2005. But six months later, the 29-year-old Moroccan-Dutchman had got his revenge, thus arousing considerable interest in next week’s bout.
“Attack is the best form of defence and I have always believed in this. I made a mistake in my second fight against Badr [Hari], but that will not happen again. This time it is going to be his youth versus my experience,” Leko told Gulf News in a chat at the Champion Club on Wednesday.
“I believe I am the best and I will be out to prove exactly this next Thursday. I have trained hard and I am ready to take him [Hari] on. It’s now or never. It will be a KO for sure,” the 39-year-old Croatian-German added.
Leko is the current WKA Super-Heavyweight world champion in kickboxing, and former Muay Thai world heavyweight champion and Kickboxing world super-heavyweight champion.
He fights out of Team Golden Glory in Breda, Netherlands and since 2011, he is being coached and managed by Tom Trautsch and won two Heavyweight World Champion titles.
Leko was successful in both Muay Thai kickboxing and K-1 during the late 1990s and early 2000s despite often conceding height and weight to some of his larger opponents in K-1.
“I know it has been a long time since we fought each other. But for me this is a golden opportunity to get my revenge and with the preparations I’ve put myself through I can predict a second round KO,” Leko said.
