Robin van Roosmalen

Van Roosmalen was drawn against Tim Thomas in the quarter-finals of the Glory 3: Rome - 2012 Middleweight Slam Final 8 on November 3, 2012, in Rome, Italy,[5] and won by TKO in the second round when he battered the Englishman into a referee stoppage. In the semis, he dropped Sanny Dahlbeck in each of the first two rounds before finishing him with a punch to the body in the third. Advancing to the final, he went up against Giorgio Petrosyan. His aggressive style played into Petrosyan's hands, however, and he was outclassed by the silky Italian to a unanimous decision loss.[6][7]

Van Roosmalen took a dominant unanimous decision over Yuichiro Nagashima at Glory 4: Tokyo - 2012 Heavyweight Grand Slam in Saitama, Japan on December 31, 2012, dropping "Jienotsu" in round one and scoring with low kicks and hard punches throughout.[8][9] He dropped Murthel Groenhart in round one en route to a unanimous decision win at Glory 7: Milan in Milan, Italy on April 20, 2013.[10][11][12][13] He beat Shemsi Beqiri by unanimous decision in a back-and-forth fight at Glory 10: Los Angeles - Middleweight World Championship Tournament in Ontario, California, United States, on September 28, 2013.[14][15][16][17]

Van Roosmalen rematched Davit Kiria in the semi-finals of the Glory 12: New York - Lightweight World Championship Tournament in New York City, New York, US on November 23, 2013, winning a unanimous decision.[18][19] In the final, he was battered by Andy Ristie, getting dropped in round one before being knocked out in two.[20][21][22][23] He defeated Marat Grigorian via split decision in the co-main event of Glory 15: Istanbul in Istanbul, Turkey on April 12, 2014.[24][25][26]

Van Roosmalen captured the Glory lightweight title with a majority decision win over Davit Kiria at Glory 18: Oklahoma on November 7, 2014.[27] He rematched Andy Ristie at Glory 20: Dubai and retained his lightweight title with a dominant unanimous decision win after knocking Ristie down two times in the fourth round. All three judges scored the fight 49-44 in favor of van Roosmalen.[28] On May 11, 2015, he was ranked as the #1 lightweight in the world by LiverKick.com.[29] He defended his title a second time, this time a unanimous decision against Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong at Glory 25: Milan. However, he would lose the title via split decision in a rematch against Sitsongpeenong at Glory 31: Amsterdam.

After losing his lightweight title, Van Roosmalen dropped down to featherweight and immediately faced Gabriel Varga for the Canadian's featherweight title. Van Roosmalen dropped Varga twice in the second round and dominated the Canadian throughout the fight, prompting the featherweight champion's corner to throw in the towel in the break between the fourth and fifth round.[30] With this win, Van Roosmalen became the first fighter to hold a Glory title in two separate weight classes. On September 29th, 2018, at Glory 59, Robin van Roosmalen was defeated by the #1 challenger and Interim champion Petchpanomrung "The Professor" Kiatmookao via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45, 50-45, 50-45).[31]

In February 2016, van Roosmalen made his professional mixed martial arts debut for Final Fight Championship. He made his debut against Theo Michailidis at FFC 22, and he won the fight via second round knockout. His next bout came on March 11, 2017 at FFC 28 against Risto Dimitrov, and he was victorious via first round technical knockout. On December 13, 2018, Van Roosmalen announced that he would transitioning from kickboxing to MMA full-time.[32]

On May 28, 2019, Bellator MMA president Scott Coker announced via Twitter that he signed Van Roosmalen to a multi-fight contract. Van Roosmalen was expected to make his promotional debut in a featherweight bout against Cris Lencioni at Bellator 232 on October 26, 2019.[33][34] However, Van Roosmalen missed the featherweight limit by nine pounds and the bout was cancelled, with the athletic commission stating Van Roosmalen must compete at Lightweight from now on.[35]