Gokhan Saki, has officially been stripped of his Glory Light Heavyweight championship title due to inactivity. GLORY reported the news on its website, it seems that the world's leading kickboxing promotion was not successful in renewing agreement with one of the sport's biggest icons. According to the company rules, a champion has to defend his title within a year or he’ll be forced to vacate it.
A few months back Saki had spoke to Bloody Elbow about his status with GLORY, as he had said: "I'm not done with GLORY. We are talking. Maybe something can happen in the summer." But now it looks like Saki is finally done with the company, after they stripped his title, as Saki had refused to defend the title on the upcoming Bellator/Glory Dynamite event this September 19th.
GLORY CEO Jon Franklin comments:
"Acting in good faith, and because we are in ongoing negotiations with Gokhan [Saki], GLORY wanted to allow every chance for a light heavyweight title defense to take place on the DYNAMITE card even though it has been over a year, We couldn't make that happen, but our deep light heavyweight division has been itching to fight for the belt and now two of our athletes will get that opportunity. We also look forward to Gokhan's return to the GLORY ring and are confident it will happen soon."
The forerunning contenders for the vacant belt seem to be the No. 2 and No. 3 ranked Light Heavyweights, Saulo Cavalari and Zack Mwekassa. There is no official confirmation on this news yet, GLORY will be announcing it in the next week.
(Source: bloodyelbow, mmamania)
