This weekend Oktagon MMA returns to England for the third time, and the European fight promotion is determined to play the long game to achieve success in the UK market.

The promotion first broke ground on UK shores last October with Oktagon 48 at the Manchester Arena, then followed up in January with a second show, Oktagon 52, at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle.

Despite not selling out the two venues, co-founders Pavol Neruda and Ondrej Novotny have recognised the challenge of breaking into an established market as a new brand.

“It’s a completely different market for us, and we definitely learned our lessons from many of you,” Novotny explained after their UK debut in Manchester.

“But I believe that we are a little bit different than the other organisations, than the other promoters. Because Pavol and me, we are going to (the fighters’) homes, we are trying to be with them. We are travelling with buses, with trams, with trains, to different cities.

Oktagon MMA

“We spent a month with these guys from Oktagon Challenge, in their villa, every day. We’ve been there. We’re not just sending the crew – we’ve been there, every day, with them.

“As we always say, they are our heroes, so we are spending all of our money every time when we go to other countries. We are almost broke, but we don’t care, because we love it!”

The promotion’s next stop in the UK will come this weekend when they host Oktagon 56 at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham on Saturday, April 20. It’s another chance for the organisation to make further progress as they continue to build on their first two shows in England.

For a promotion that has routinely played to packed arenas across the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany, repeating the trick in the UK is proving to be a tougher task. But Neruda and Novotny are happy to show their growing pains, rather than fill arenas using free tickets to give a false impression.

“We are not giving tickets (away), just to make it look nice and full. We are just selling the tickets,” said Novotny, who also serves as the promotion’s cage announcer.

Oktagon MMA

“We will never try to fool anyone that we can sell this (Manchester Arena) for the first time. We learned our lessons, but we will sell it (out). Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next year. But we will sell it. And we’ll sell it with these (fighters), who are growing with us. We will not change them. We will stick with them.”

The promotion has invested in key talent in the market, having snapped up rising stars Shem Rock, George Staines, Akonne Wanliss, Corey Fry, Ammari Diedrick and Jake McHugh, as well as former Cage Warriors champions Mick Stanton, Matt Bonner and Sam Creasey, ex-UFC welterweight contender John Hathaway, former BAMMA heavyweight champion Stuart Austin, Irish talents Will Fleury and Denis Frimpong, and Welsh MMA hero Aaron Aby.

They haven’t been afraid to bring their own approach into the UK market, with two reality TV shows, Oktagon Challenge: England vs. Ireland, and Stage to the Cage, both helping establish the brand, and their fighters, via their broadcast partnership with Channel 4 in the UK.

Staines won the season of Oktagon Challenge, but the show also saw the rise of Irish lightweight talent Frimpong, whose spiky personality helped give the show the edge it needed. Frimpong lost out to Staines in the season finale, but his recent victory over Oktagon veteran Jan Siroky helped benchmark his talent in a busy lightweight division. Both Staines and Frimpong will return to action in Birmingham, with the pair now on separate paths to the top.

Oktagon MMA

Elsewhere, Wanliss earned himself a spot in this year’s €1 million Tipsport Gamechanger lightweight tournament, while Austin stunned number-one contender Adam Palasz to earn himself a shot at the Oktagon heavyweight title.

That title fight will come at Oktagon 57 in Frankfurt on May 4. Meanwhile, Wanliss’ delayed opening round bout in the Tipsport Gamechanger will take place in his home town of Birmingham after wild scenes in Ostrava saw him attacked by opponent Sahil Siraj’s coaches after the pre-fight press conference.

Then there’s the ongoing story of Aby, who has overcome a string of personal health battles with cystic fibrosis and stage three testicular cancer over the course of his life to become one of the most inspiring stories in European MMA. His shot at the inaugural flyweight title at Oktagon 48 ended in heartbreak when, ahead on the scorecards, he was stopped on cuts in his bout with American Elias Garcia.

A rematch looked certain, but after Garcia declined the return bout at Oktagon 52 in Newcastle, Aby faced, and defeated, dangerous submission specialist Christopher Daniel to underscore his position as the promotion’s top active flyweight. After Garcia again turned down a rematch, Novotny announced that the promotion had stripped the American of the title, with Aby set to face old nemesis and former Cage Warriors flyweight champion Sam Creasey in an all-British clash for the vacant belt in Birmingham.

The promotion is not only building its own talent, it’s doing so with compelling narratives and attention-grabbing storylines. That’s not to say they’re manufacturing drama, however. Instead they’re simply working with the fighters to tell each individual athlete’s personal story. And when you have such a diverse roster of fighters, there’s an interesting tale at every turn.

Oktagon continues to develop at pace in Europe, too. They had previously made the open-air tennis stadium on Prague’s Stvanice island the home of their spectacular summer events, but they bade farewell to the 8,000-seat venue after realising that they had outgrown it. Even last year’s two-night spectacular was deemed insufficient for the demand for tickets. A bigger venue was sought and, in June, Oktagon 58 will take place at the home of Slavia Prague, the 19,000-seat Fortuna Arena, as the promotion hosts an event in a football stadium for the first time.

Then, in October, Oktagon will host their biggest event yet, Oktagon 61, at the 55,000-seat Waldstadion in Frankfurt. The home of Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt is set to host five games during this summer’s UEFA Euro 2024 tournament. A few short months later, the stadium will play host to Oktagon’s most ambitious event to date, which could deliver one of Europe’s biggest MMA events in terms of attendance.

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Neruda and Novotny want to pack houses in the UK in the same way they’re playing to sold-out arenas in Europe. They know it’s a gradual process, but you get the impression they’re in it for the long haul.

“Good things take time, success doesn’t happen overnight,” Neruda wrote on LinkedIn.

“How are we doing with the expansion to the UK? Our first milestone was the tournament in Manchester, where we sold 1/4 of the capacity of the arena (4,500), but it was still a record for the domestic scene.

“Subsequently, we sold 1/3 of the capacity of the arena at Newcastle (3,000), which is a record for Newcastle, and we are slowly growing further.

“We are heading to Birmingham, where we plan to sell 1/2 of the capacity of the arena (6,000). The next tournament it could be 8,000 or more, and the next one 10,000+ English spectators – and there we are!

“We believe that this is the path that will get us to where we want to be. If we succeed and one day we stand in a hall with 10,000 spectators, we can say that we have successfully started dominating the English market.”

Oktagon 56: Official fight card

MAIN CARD

• Aaron Aby vs. Sam Creasey – for vacant flyweight title
• Akonne Wanliss vs. Sahil Siraj – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
• Shem Rock vs. Stefano Catacoli
• Daniel Skvor vs. Will Fleury
• Andrej Kalasnik vs. Liam Etebar
• George Staines vs. Tomas Ciganik

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Jakub Dohnal vs. James Hendin
• Denis Frimpong vs. Callum Mullen
• Mick Stanton vs. Kamil Wojciechowski
• Max Handanagic vs. James Dixon
• Ammari Diedrick vs. Daniel Hromek
• Beau Gavin vs. Mbaye Gaye
• Megan Morris vs. Aitana Alvarez