Who is Sina Karimian? The Controversial Iranian Heavyweight Just Signed with GLORY

Glory kickboxing has been rapidly expanding its stagnant heavyweight division, so much so that it is creating one of the biggest tournaments in combat sports today. Their 32-man heavyweight kickboxing tournament even puts organizations like PFL’s tournament structure to shame. This led Glory to sign every big name at heavyweight to compete in this tournament, including the controversial Iranian kickboxer Sina Karimian.

Sina Karimian is a former K-1 WGP Cruiserweight tournament winner and the former K-1 Cruiserweight champion, having recently lost his title to Chinese phenom Liu Ce. The Iranian former champion trains out of Japan’s POWER OF DREAM kickboxing gym and is trained by former K-1 Kickboxer Nicholas Pettas in Japan, however, despite the Iranian training out of Japan and being surrounded by the karate-style bushido code of honor and respect.

Sina Karimian, quite literally, does not abide by that. He is a fighter known for deliberately fouling opponents to get an advantage and, even worse, hitting referees as they break up clinches and call fouls, such as in his fight with Claudio Istrate back in 2023.

Or even recently, at RIZIN’s New Year’ event, RIZIN 49: Decade. Sina Karimian would again cause problems, deliberately throwing an illegal spinning back fist in his exhibition boxing match against Rukiya Anpo. A fight that he would be short notice replacement for Ryan Garcia was Rukiya Anpo’s original opponent.

Despite having every single advantage over Rukiya Anpo, such as his massive size advantage. Sina Karimian still would attempt to hit Anpo with a spinning back fist, after which Anpo would throw his after the referee didn’t deduct a point from Sina Karimian. This would lead to absolute chaos, as the two fighters would brawl. When the referee attempted to break it up, Sina Karimian would hit the referee multiple times, prompting other officials to break up the disgraceful scene.

Karimian would actually lose this match by a wide margin, as Anpo proved himself to be the far superior boxer despite being a controversial fighter in the kickboxing scene.

Sina Karimian, despite his disgraceful antics can still still be of good use for gLORY Kickboxing

There is no way anyone who actually cares about the good of combat sports can commend Sina Karimian’s actions. His actions are similar to those of Conor McGregor during his fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229. However, the Iranian is still a very talented kickboxer, and despite being a cruiserweight, he can still compete with the bigger boys at heavyweight.

Also, Glory has more of a tendency to punish bad behavior, unlike a lot of Japanese promotions, which tend to revel in freakshows. It is almost as if the shadow of PRIDE FC still looms in the Japanese combat sports scene. It’s likely that Sina Karimian will be more incentivized to perform to his best ability as opposed to deliberately trying to sabotage the match.

So if Sina Karimian is on his best behavior and looking to win with his skills and not his antics, he can be a force in this tournament and even be a dark horse to win it all if GLORY Kickboxing can keep him in check.