Glory 16 Denver fight card announced: Heavyweight tournament, Nieky Holzken, Pat Barry highlight card

Top kickboxing organization Glory makes its return to the United States on May 3 for Glory 16 Denver. As always, Glory will air on Spike TV (presumably live since the time zone will not force a delay). We've known the date for Glory 16 for a few weeks, but now the company has announced the full fight card, and it's a good one. Take a look:

GLORY 16 DENVER FIGHT CARD

Tournament Final Bout
Welterweight World Title Bout: Nieky Holzken vs. Marc de Bonte
Tournament Reserve Bout: Pat Barry vs. Zack Mwekassa
Tournament Semi-final Bout B: Anderson Silva vs. Sergei Kharitonov
Tournament Semi-final Bout A: Ben Edwards vs. Errol Zimmerman

A lot of good stuff on this card. To start, you have a Welterweight World Title fight between Nieky Holzken and Marc de Bonte. Holzken was last seen winning the Glory 13 Welterweight tournament in December, defeating Joseph Valtellini in my pick for kickboxing's 2013 Fight of the Year. Here, he faces Marc de Bonte in a fight fans have been asking for for some time. De Bonte is coming off a 2013 win over L'houcine "Aussi" Ouzgni, who holds 2 wins over Holzken. This should be a technical masterpiece and a terrific world title fight.

Also included here is a Heavyweight contender tournament. Like the Middleweight tournament seen at Glory 14 Zagreb, this contender tournament will earn the winner a shot in a Heavyweight title tournament later in the year. Four very good contenders here makes this a real tough tournament to call. All should be exciting fights, but in particular, Edwards vs. Zimmerman is everything you want in a good old-fashioned Heavyweight slugfest. That one will be insane.

Rounding out the card is the Glory debut of former UFC fighter Pat Barry. Barry is making his return to kickboxing this year, and will take on Zack Mwekassa, a 14-4 boxer fighting out of South Africa. Mwekassa has a decent boxing career and makes his Glory debut here as well. He's a good first opponent for Barry and a chance for HD to get back in the ring without jumping right in to Glory's deep waters.