Adamchuk’s tenure as champion began at GLORY 25 when he took the belt from Canada’s Gabriel Varga by way of a close and controversial decision. He then defended the belt against Mosab Amrani at GLORY 28 by way of an incredible shut-out performance over five rounds, before losing it back to Varga – also by way of a close decision – at GLORY 32 in July.

Originally from Ukraine but now based in Amsterdam, Netherlands where he trains and fights out of Mike’s Gym (Badr Hari, Melvin Manhoef, Murthel Groenhart), Adamchuk has a well-deserved reputation as one of the trickiest fighters in kickboxing today. He made his bones in GLORY by taking a fight against lightweight contender Marat Grigorian on a day’s notice (“I’ll eat a steak tonight to get myself up to lightweight”) and outboxing him to a decision win.

Until his rematch with Varga he was 5-0 in the organization and a fighter that nobody was in a rush to call out. His unusual style puzzles opponents and also has a habit of making them look bad. Scoring cleanly on Adamchuk has been difficult. Varga is the only opponent to have knocked him down in GLORY and that shot was one of the few clean power-shots that Adamchuk has taken in any of his six fights in the organization.

“Yeah he’s tricky, that’s true. But I’m going to beat him. Not only beat him, I’m going to stop him,” states Chikadze in his usual laconic tone, sounding more like he is thinking about his grocery list than about taking on a fighter who was, until six weeks ago, #1 in the world in this weight class.

“He changes stance a lot, southpaw to orthodox and back. His boxing is good as well. But I can figure him out, I change stance a lot as well. He has what I would call a typical Eastern European style, which has a strong karate background, but he’s training now at Mike’s Gym in Amsterdam, where they have that typical Western European/Dutch style, with more boxing and low kicks,” he explains.

“Eastern European-style fighters tend to move a lot more, I think. Also they have a wider range of kicks. I have trained in Eastern Europe and Western Europe myself – including Mike’s Gym, actually – so I know both styles. Adamchuk has a background in Sambo, so he’s not a pure kickboxer.”

“I do see weaknesses that can be exploited. I think that… wait, is this going to be published before the fight? It is? Then I don’t want to say too much, ha! Let’s just say that I think I see some openings in his defense. I can talk more about it after the fight.”

Chikadze, himself a very unorthodox fighter with a varied kick arsenal, likes to make a study of his opponents and he has taken a good look at the GLORY 32 rematch between Adamchuk and Varga to see what can be gleaned from it. One thing he wants to point out is Adamchuk’s habit of leading with his head when he comes in to grab a clinch. In both fights with Varga he opened a cut over the Canadian’s eye due to a clash of heads.

“I think Varga won the [rematch] clearly; he scored that knockdown in the second round. And I think he deserved to win, because again we saw some not nice things from Adamchuk in the fight, clinching and coming in with his head. Two fights now with Varga and both times he cut him with a headbutt as he came in to clinch,” he says.

“And also what I don’t like from Adamchuk is he complains a lot to the referee. He is the one making the fight ugly, not clean, but then he is the one complaining to the referee like it’s the other guy’s fault and not his! This is bulls—t. I am going to talk to the referee about this before the fight. But actually, maybe I don’t need to do that, because I am going to finish this guy.”

GLORY 33 takes place this Friday, September 9 at the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, New Jersey. The event airs live on ESPN 2 in the US from 11pm ET/8 p.m PT and is headlined by Rico Verhoeven defending his heavyweight championship against Brazilian veteran Anderson “Braddock” Silva over five rounds.