Kickboxing giant, cancer survivor headlines Saturday's 'GLORY: Redemption' pay-per-view

While there’s plenty of MMA on tap this weekend with the UFC, Bellator, Invicta, ONE Championship and RFA all holding events, the biggest fight of all will take place in a kickboxing ring.

Well, size-wise, anyway – though the stakes are indeed very high.

On Saturday, UFC.tv pay-per-view features “GLORY: Redemption” from Ahoy Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In the main event, 6-foot-6 heavyweight champ Rico Verhoeven (52-10-1, 10 KO) puts his belt on the line against 6-foot-8 slugger Jamal Ben Saddik (32-5, 26 KO) in a rematch of a 2011 fight that actually saw the challenger prevail.

The four-fight main card kicks off at 4 p.m. ET and costs $29.99.

“Back in 2011, I fought Rico, and I stopped him in the second round,” Saddik told UFC.com. “It was my very first professional fight. Did I see anything in him then which made me think he would go on to be the champion today? No, not at all. It was first professional fight, but he was experienced, and I stopped him. So that wouldn’t make you think that he would go on to be champion.”

While that would seem to have been the launching point of a potential rivalry, Saddik was handed a few losses over the next few years and struggled to perform at a level that seemed befitting of a man needing to again face a world champion.

While he tried to hide his struggles, by most accounts, Saddik recently revealed that was at the heart of his struggles: thyroid cancer.

Saddik had two separate battles with the disease and was just recently given the all-clear from his doctors. Now he’s looking to make up for lost time in a massive contest for all the marbles.

“This is the first time in my life that I have been able to prepare myself 100 percent,” Saddik said. “I have never had a period before where I have been able to prepare for a fight without any health problems: first the thyroid issues, then the cancer.”

“My health is now working with me instead of against me. I am eating well, sleeping well, training well, and this is why I say that I am a real fighter, a born fighter. I have had to fight to stay alive, day after day, every day. So I am a natural fighter, fighting is literally the story of my life.

To be a cancer survivor and then become world champion, that would be a dream come true. I want to show everyone who doesn’t believe in themselves that they are wrong. If you keep fighting, keep believing, you can achieve it. Just don’t give up.”

You can watch the prelims for “GLORY: Redemption” live and free on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET in the embedded video below.

GLORY’s Saturday lineup includes:

‘GLORY: Redemption’ (UFC.tv pay-per-view, 4 p.m.ET)

• Champ Rico Verhoeven vs. Jamal Ben Saddik
• Michael Duut vs. Danyo Ilunga
• Chenglong Zhang vs. Bailey Sugden
• Petchpanomrung Kiatmookao vs. Zakaria Zouggary

GLORY 49 Superight Series (YouTube, 1:30 p.m. ET)

• Alex Pereira vs. Yousri Belgaroui
• Nieky Holzken vs. Alim Nabiyev
• Ismael Londt vs. D’Angelo Marshall
• Anderson Silva vs. Brian Douwes
• Eyevan Danenberg vs. Jamie Bates

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie‘s official blog and is edited by Mike Bohn.