SAN DIEGO — Simon Marcus didn’t do a very good job of hiding his feelings afterward.
“Bullsh*t!” Marcus screamed. “I won that fight!”
Many of the fans in attendance at Valley View Casino Center agreed. But two judges did not.
Artem Levin and Marcus fought to a majority draw Saturday night in the main event of GLORY 21. Two judges scored the bout 48-48, while one other had it for Marcus 48-46. Levin retained his GLORY middleweight title due to the result.
The entire fight was close, but Levin had a point taken away in the third round for clinching. At that point, it seemed like Marcus would be ahead on the scorecards, but it didn’t work out that way. The crowd, which had been raucous all night, booed the decision.
Marcus controlled the pace throughout, pushing forward and initiating the action. Levin did land clean and hard shots — arguably cleaner and harder than Marcus. But Marcus certainly landed some of his own and seemed to more, while Levin was content to tie things up into a clinch.
On a night filled with finishes, this likely wasn’t the result GLORY would have wanted in a main event between two of the top middleweight kickboxers in the world.
The co-headliner was the first fight of the main card that went past the first round — but not much further than that. Xavier Vigney outbrawled Chi Lewis-Parry and finished him in the corner with a flurry of punches at 1:50 of the second in the finals of the GLORY 21 heavyweight qualification tournament. Lewis-Parry landed the harder punches in the first round, but seemed to be out of gas as time ran down.
Vigney earns a berth in a GLORY contender tournament, where he could earn a shot at the heavyweight title currently held by Rico Verhoeven.
The crowd was expecting spinning techniques and, as he usually does, Raymond Daniels delivered in the co-main event. He ripped Bellator vet Jason Baesman with a spinning back kick to the liver to finish the fight by knockout in just 51 seconds. Afterward, Daniels called out the winner of an eventual welterweight title fight between champion Joe Valtellini and Nieky Holzken.
“If they think because they got by me one time it’ll be like that again, they’re in for a rude awakening,” Daniels said.
In the semifinals of the heavyweight tournament, Lewis-Parry took a few big shots from Demoreo Dennis early and then pasted him with a thunderous right hand for a knockout at just 1:40 of the first round. Before entering the ring, Lewis-Parry jawed at Brandon Vera, who was sitting ringside. Lewis-Parry and Vera both fight for ONE Championship and Lewis-Parry has been calling him out.
Vigney made quick work to reach the final, dispatching Maurice Jackson by knockout in just 1:32. Vigney appeared to hurt Jackson early with a leg kick and, really, Jackson was never in it to begin with.
In the Superfight Series bouts, local boy Michael Lemaire popped the crowd with a unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) win over Casey Greene. With Rafael Cordeiro of Kings MMA in his corner, Giga Chikadze finished Ken Tran with body kicks in the third round and Maurice Greene crushed Ashley Epps via knockout in the first round. Manny Mancha beat Andre Walker in an entertaining Superfight Series pro opener.