Here are the highlights. Go to Glory World Series for the full fight and/or full event.

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Yushin Okami will face Hector Lombard, Taknori Gomi to fight Diego Sanchez, Riki Fukuda against Brad Tavares. Takeya Mizugaki and Mizuto Hirota will also be highly anticipated by the native crowd.

Sixteen fighters fought it out in the ground-breaking one-night single-elimination tournament, with a ‘Best of Three’ rule in operation for the first three stages. The rule, designed to eliminate needless injuries, meant that any fighter who won the first two rounds of a bout would advance to the next stage without the need for the third round to be fought.

The field consisted of household names and rising stars, with the likes of Peter Aerts, Semmy Schilt and Remy Bonjasky lining up alongside Gokhan Saki, Jamal Ben Saddik and Daniel Ghita. Playing out over fifteen fights, the tournament saw eight bouts end with a stoppage of some kind, making for a knockout percentage of just under 55%.

“I’ve won many tournaments but this is the best ever,” Schilt said afterwards. “It was a hard tournament with some very good fighters and some very hard fights, for me and for everyone else. But all the struggle is worth it to win a competition like this. GLORY is home to the best fighters in the world and I am very proud to be the winner of the first-ever Grand Slam tournament.”

Schilt’s run saw him stop French heavyweight Brice Guidon in the first round of the very first fight via a pair of heavy right hands. He then outclassed the hot prospect Rico Verhoeven to take a decision win under the ‘Best of Three’ rule before meeting Gokhan Saki in the final. Saki, who had knocked out both his opponents in the first round of his Final 16 and Final 8 matches, tried to do the same to Schilt but couldn’t overcome the reach difference. He landed some good shots but couldn’t get the clean connection he needed in order to seal the deal. The judges declared Schilt the winner under the Best of Two rule and although Saki bitterly disputed this, Schilt went through to the final.

There he met Daniel Ghita, who had finished his semi-final match in just ten seconds by stopping the giant Jamal Ben Saddik with a left kick to the solar plexus. As a result Ghita was well-rested and less hurt that Schilt, who had come through the war with Saki. But near the end of a close first round Schilt threw a perfectly-timed head kick and connected his shin cleanly
across the side of Ghita’s head.

The Romanian – second-favorite to win the tournament – went down and stayed down for some time. He rose to his feet as the referee’s ten count was ending but the referee determined that he was unsteady on his feet and that the fight should be ended for his own safety. Like the warrior he is, Ghita wanted to continue but the head kick had done its work and Ghita was out, leaving Schilt as the last man standing. “This was not just a great New Year’s Eve event, it was a great martial arts event. I think that the skill and the courage that we saw in the ring tonight is really what the martial arts is all about. Perhaps its a bit of cliché seeing as we are in Tokyo but I really do think we can say that the fighters tonight embodied the samurai spirit which all martial artists aspire to,” says GLORY
Chairman Pierre Andurand.

In the evening’s superfights, speed and technique reigned supreme. Robin van Roosmalen, who came second in the GLORY lightweight tournament earlier this year, was matched with the colorful Japanese character Yuichiro Nagashima and completely dominated him from start to finish.

Nagashima had no answer for van Roosmalen’s forward pressure and concussive power. He showed a lot of heart in refusing to stay down after being knocked down several times and in some instances literally knocked off his feet with low kicks.Toshio Matsumoto gave Jason ‘Tyson’ Wilnis a stiff test in their middleweight match. The experienced Matsumoto is known as ‘The Knockout Artist’ and he showed why, demonstrating slick boxing skills and fluid combinations. Wilnis’ own skills were more than a match for Matsumoto’s but he was also younger and more powerful. He took a while to get into the fight but once he did his better conditioning put him in front and by the final bell he was dominating on his way to a unanimous decision win.

Finally, flyweights Sang Jae Kim of Korea and Mutsuki Ebata of Japan stole the show with a three-round battle that was non-stop from start to finish. The Japanese fighter was by far the better man but his Korean opponent could not be stopped and refused to lie down. Kim lost a one-sided decision but impressed onlookers with his heart and got a big round of applause from the Japanese arena.

GLORY 4 TOKYO – HEAVYWEIGHT GRAND SLAM – RESULTS
Grand Final

Semmy Schilt def. Daniel Ghita, TKO, 2:42 R1 (Head Kick)

Final 4 Results

Semmy Schilt def. Gokhan Saki, Dec. R2, ‘Best of Three’ rule
Daniel Ghita def. Jamal Ben Saddik, KO, R1 (Body Kick)

Final 8 Results

Semmy Schilt def. Rico Verhoeven, Dec. R2, ‘Best of Three’ rule

Gokhan Saki vs. Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva, KO, R1

Jamal Ben Saddik def. Remy Bonjasky, Dec. R2, ‘Best of Three’ rule

Daniel Ghita def. Mourad Bouzidi by TKO, R2 (Bouzidi dislocated right elbow)

Final 16 Results

Semmy Schilt def. Brice Guidon by KO, R1

Rico Verhoeven def. Sergey Kharitonov, Dec. R2, ‘Best of Three’ rule

Gokhan Saki def. Roaumaru by KO, R1 1:00

Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva vs. Igor Jurkovic by KO (two knockdowns), R1

Remy Bonjasky def. Filip Verlinden by unanimous decision after three rounds

Jamal Ben Saddik def. Errol Zimmerman, Dec. R2, ‘Best of Three’ rule

Mourad Bouzidi def. Peter Aerts by TKO (Aerts retired before R2 with broken right hand)

Daniel Ghita def. Jhonata Diniz by unanimous decision after three rounds

Superfights

Lightweight

Robin van Roosmalen defeated Yuichiro Nagashima by Unanimous Decision.

Flyweight bout

Mutsuki Ebata defeated Sang Jae Kim by Unanimous Decision.

Middleweight bout

Jason Wilnis defeated Toshio Matsumoto by Unanimous Decision.

Aoki was exactly on the 154 pound/70 kilogram weight limit for his fight with UFC veteran McKee, who then hit the scales at 153 pounds/69.5 kilograms. Their fight, which headlines the New Year’s Eve event, has been nearly two years in the making.

Of the other 14 fighters on the DREAM 18 card, all except Denis Kang (35-15-2, 2 NC) and Will Brooks (7-0) made weight on the first attempt.

Kang was 1.32 pounds/600 grams overweight when he first stood on the scales. He hit the sauna for an hour and made weight on his second attempt, touching down at 185 pounds/84 kilograms for his middleweight fight with Melvin Manhoef (26-9-1, 1 NC).

Brooks was 1.2 kilos overweight for his 154/pound/70 kilogram meeting with Japan’s Satoru Kitoaka (30-11-9). He was given two hours to lose the excess, but returned to the scales after one hour to make a second attempt. He was still .5 overweight and was given another hour to hit 70 kilograms, which he managed on the third and final try.

Complete DREAM 18 Weigh-In Results:

Featherweight match:

Tatsuya Kawajiri (65 kilos/143lbs) vs. Michihiro Omigawa (64.8/143lbs)

Featherweight match:

Hiroyuki Takaya (65 kilos/143 lbs) vs. Georgi Karakhanyan (65 kilos/143 lbs)

Lightweight match:

Shinya Aoki (70 kilos/154.3 lbs) vs. Antonio McKee (69.5kg/154.3 lbs)

Bantamweight match:

Bibiano Fernandes (62.8 kilos/ 138.4 lbs) vs. Yoshiro Maeda (62.1 kilos / 136. 9lbs)

Middleweight match:

Melvin Manhoef (83.6 kilos/184.3 lbs) vs. Denis Kang (84 kilos /185.1 lbs kilos on second attempt)

Welterweight fight:

Hayato ‘Mach’ Sakurai (76.5 kilos/168.6 lbs) vs. Phil Baroni (76.1 kilos/167.7 lbs)

Catchweight Female Fight:

Marloes Coenen (66 kilos/145 lbs) vs. Fiona Muxlow (65.7 kilos/144.8 kilos)

Lightweight match:

Satoru Kitaoka (70 kilos/154.3 lbs) vs. Will Brooks (70 kilos/154.3 lbs on third attempt)

The CBS Sports Network telecast of the DREAM 18 event will begin at 10:00 p.m. EST/7:00 p.m. PST on Tuesday, Jan. 1.

CBS Sports Network is available across ! the country through local cable, video and telco providers and via satellite on DirecTV Channel 613 and Dish Network Channel 158. For more information, and to access the CBS Sports Network channel finder, go towww.cbssportsnetwork.com.

For more information, visit www.gloryworldseries.com.

The weigh-ins took place at the Sunroute Plaza Hotel in Tokyo. The tournament fighters were joined by the fighters slated for action in the three Superfights that will unfold between each stage of the tournament.

The event represents one-half of a double-header mega-event that will begin with the DREAM 18 Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight card and continue with the GLORY 4 Tokyo – Heavyweight Grand Slam event. Both shows are being presented by Glory Sports International, parent company of GLORY, which is committed to continuing the tradition of huge, end-of-year shows in Japan.

“It’s going to be a memorable night with a tremendous amount of world-class action,” said GLORY Chairman Pierre Andurand as he presented the tournament fighters to a packed press conference. “We want to revive large-scale shows in Japan and this is the first step towards achieving that goal.”

Heaviest of the tournament fighters was the GLORY Heavyweight Champion and No. 1 tournament seed Semmy Schilt (39-6, 18 KOs) of the Netherlands. The tremendous, 2.12 meters/6-foot-11 Karate black belt hit the scales at 287 pounds/130.2 kilograms and will outweigh his opening-round opponent Brice Guidon (21 8-7, 4 KOs) of France considerably. Guidon, who already has one loss to Schilt from a fight in Moscow earlier this year, weighed in at 225 pounds/102 kilograms.

The second heaviest fighter was Jamal Ben Saddik (22-0, 19 KOs), the young Moroccan heavyweight who has already been likened to Schilt, thanks to being almost as tall as him. Ben Saddik, the second-youngest fighter in the tournament at 22 years old, weighed in at 284 pounds/128.8 kilograms.

He faces the hard-hitting No. 6 tournament seed Errol ‘The Bonecrusher’ Zimmerman (76-16-1, 41 KOs) of Suriname, who hit the scales at 253 pounds/114.8 kilograms. Zimmerman will be the lighter and shorter man in the fight, but he has unbelievable power in his right hand and can KO anybody with a single shot.

Gokhan Saki (77-15, 53 KOs), the tournament’s No. 2 seed, hit the scales at 228 pounds/103.4 kilos. Possibly the most explosive fighter in the tournament, he faces Japanese brawler Raomoru, who weighed in at a slightly heavier 230 pounds /104.2 kilograms.

No. 3 seed Daniel “The Savage Samurai” Ghita (44-7, 34 KOs) of Romania tipped the scales at 238 pounds/108 kilograms for his opening round match with Brazilian opponent Jhonata Diniz (7-2). At 21 years old, Diniz is the youngest and least experienced fighter in the tournament but has impressed his coaches at Golden Glory. He hit the scales at 237.5 pounds/107.8 kilograms.

Aerial attack artist and No. 4 seed Remy “The Flying Gentleman” Bonjasky (77-14, 40 KOs) of the Netherlands returned to the ring in Oct. after an absence of nearly three years and took a win over the very tough Anderson ’Braddock’ Silva to prove that he still has all his old magic. Bonjasky weighed in at 243 pounds /110.2 kilograms.

Facing Bonjasky is Filip Verlinden (38-6, 17 KOs), a Belgian Muay Thai technician who has generated a lot of excitement among seasoned observers. Verlinden, who hit the scales at 205 pounds/93.1 kilograms, is extremely fast and has very strong boxing skills, making for an interesting clash of styles with the high-kicking Bonjasky.

All-time great and No. 5 seed Peter Aerts (104-30-1, 78 KOs) of the Netherlands weighed in at 231 pounds/105 kilograms for his First 16 tournament round fight with Mourad Bouzidi (73-19, 33 KOs), who touched down at 215 pounds/97.5 kilograms. An added twist to this fight is that Aerts and Bouzidi are not only good friends, but also long-time training partners who know each other’s styles intimately.

No. 8  and final seed Sergei Kharitonov (22-7, 12 KOs) of Russia wandered onto the scales with his customary expressionless calm and produced a readout of 264.5 pounds/120 kilograms. He faces 23-year-old fast-rising star Rico Verhoeven (37-6-1, 8 KOs) of the Netherlands, who weighed in at 255 pounds/115.8 kilograms.

Anderson ‘Braddock’ Silva (32-8-1, 22 KOs), Brazil’s top heavyweight kickboxer, weighed in at 243 pounds/110.2 kilograms and looks to build on the respect he earned for performances against Badr Hari and Bonjasky earlier this year. He faces Igor Jurkovic, who weighed in at 220 pounds/99.8 kilograms.  Jurkovic is a sparring partner of fellow Croatian Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic.

Robin van Roosmalen (37-14-3, 12 KO’s), the runner-up in last month’s GLORY 3 Rome ‘Final 8’ lightweight (154 pounds/70 kilograms) tournament, weighed in at 154 pounds/69.9 kilograms today as did his Superfight opponent, the infamous cos-play aficionado Guacharo ‘Jienotsu’ Nagashima (17-5, 12 KO’s). True to form, Nagashima, was dressed outrageously in one of his manga-inspired costumes, complete with a bright blue wig.

Jason ‘Tyson’ Wilnis (18-1-2) weighed in at 185 pounds/84 kilograms for his Superfight with the very difficult and very experienced Toshio Matsumoto (38-9-6, 30 KO). Known as ‘The Knockout Artist,’ Matsumoto weighed in at 187 pounds/84.9 kilograms.

Finally, two very accomplished young fighters in the shape of Japan’s Mutsuki Ebata (16-1-1) and South Korea’s Sang Jae Kimweighed in at 116.5 pounds/52.9 kilograms and 116 pounds/52.5 kilograms, respectively, then faced off ahead of what promises to be a thrillingly fast and technical Superfight.

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TOKYO, Japan (Dec. 13, 2012) –  World No. 2 ranked lightweight (154 pounds/70 kilograms) Robin van Roosmalen (37-14-3, 12 KO’s) has been confirmed for a Superfight with colorful Japanese fighter Yuichiro Nagashima (17-5, 12 KO’s) at the GLORY 4 TOKYO – Heavyweight Grand Slam event at Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, Japan on New Year’s Eve.

Also confirmed is a heavyweight showdown between the legendary ‘Battle Cyborg’ Jerome Le Banner (72-21-2, 58 KO’s) and Japanese Kyokushin Karate stylist Koichi Pettas (26-7-1, 15 KO’s). The three-round battle pits the heavy hands and raw power of Le Banner against the hard-kicking technicality of Pettas and should provide for an exhilarating match.

Nagashima and Pettas

“GLORY is home to the world’s top stand-up fighters and these two fights showcase that perfectly. In the first we have the world’s No. 2 lightweight fighter, who smashed his way through our ‘Final 8’ tournament earlier this year and fought the world’s No. 1 ranked lightweight Giorgio Petroysan in a thrilling final,” says Glory Sports International CEO Marcus Luer.

“Nagashima is known the world over for his flamboyant ring entrances. He likes to put on a show but he also has the fighting skills to match. He prefers the kicking game while van Roosmalen likes to use his hands, so it’s going to be an interesting clash of styles in this fight.

“As for the heavyweights, Le Banner is an icon to fight fans all around the world. He is up there with Peter Aerts, Semmy Schilt and Remy Bonjasky as a legend of the sport. Some of the biggest KO’s in the history of the sport have been at Le Banner’s hands and he will be looking to stage another one for his fans on New Year’s Eve.

“He is facing a hometown hero, though and Koichi is not an easy man to put away. He made his GLORY debut earlier this year with a huge KO of American veteran Mark Miller and his Kyokushin style means he puts a lot of damage on his opponents. Fighting him is a painful experience for anybody.”

In Japan, Le Banner is known as ‘The Battle Cyborg,’ thanks to a relentless ferocity and unbelievable toughness that at times makes him seem to be half-machine. Born in the tough docklands city of Le Havre, he has battled his way into the sport’s history books with huge KO’s and awe-inspiring displays of courage. He has wins over top names such as legend Ernesto Hoost, Tyrone Spong, Mark Hunt and Bonjasky.

Pettas, known simply as ‘Koichi,’ is one of the top heavyweight karate fighters on the planet and can trace his lineage directly to the founder of Kyokushin Karate, sensei Mas Oyama. The style was developed from traditional karate as an answer to Muay Thai, and it is considered to be one of the hardest fighting styles in the world today. Koichi proves that claim via 15 KO’s from his 26 wins.

Van Roosmalen comes from a family of boxers and one look at his fighting style is enough to see that the blood runs true. Packing fearsome power into his 154 pound/70 kilogram frame, van Roosmalen has a well-deserved reputation as a KO artist, and has a growing army of fans. His performance in the GLORY ‘Final 8’ tournament on Nov. 3 was spectacular and included a ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate against Dzhabar Askerov.

Nagashima was a high-school student when he first saw a kickboxing tournament. He was immediately entranced, particularly by the superb technique of the Swiss karate fighter Andy Hug. Already a judo black belt, Nagashima at that point directed all his energies into the striking arts and determined to emulate his hero. He swore that he would always be an entertainer as well as a fighter, prompting the development of the flamboyant ring entrances which have graced television screens worldwide.