Oktagon MMA’s return to Ostrava will see a huge night of fights for the promotion with the first round of the lightweight Tipsport Gamechanger tournament set to take place at the Ostravar Arena on March 2. But the stakes have been raised with the addition of a championship unification battle.
Reigning Oktagon middleweight champion and the promotion’s pound-for-pound No. 1, Czech Republic’s Patrik Kincl, returns to headline the event, and he’ll take on the newly-crowned interim champion, Poland’s Piotr Wawrzyniak, in a title unification bout.
Kincl has starred at the top of the fight card in each of his previous three Oktagon MMA appearances, and on each occasion he picked up an impressive victory. He defeated Samuel Kristofic on the scorecards at Oktagon 31 back in February 2022, then followed up with a first-round finish of Alex Lohore at Oktagon 35 seven months later.
He then defeated Oktagon superstar Karlos Vemola in the main event of Oktagon 43 as he avenged his defeat to “Terminator” under the XFC banner back in 2018. “The Inspector” now sits at the top of Oktagon’s pound-for-pound rankings, and is one of the faces of the promotion.
His status as 185-pound king will come under threat on March 3 when he faces off against Wawrzyniak, who arrives in stellar form having captured the interim title on his promotional debut.
Oktagon MMA
Wawrzyniak started his current win streak when he joined Polish promotion Babylon MMA. After picking up back-to-back wins in 2021, he captured the promotion’s vacant middleweight championship with a first-round knockout of Adam Laguna in June 2022. He then defended his title with a second-round TKO finish of Adrian Bleszynski in April 2023 to put himself on the radar of Oktagon’s talent scouts.
Wawrzyniak stepped in on short notice to replace an injured Kincl against top contender Vlasto Cepo at Oktagon 51. With Cepo originally set to challenge for the middleweight title, the bout was set as an interim title fight, and Wawrzyniak produced an outstanding debut performance to finish Cepo in the third round with ground and pound to capture the interim crown.
Now he faces Kincl for all the marbles at 185 pounds as he bids to capture his second title in two fights with the promotion.
Oktagon 54: Confirmed bouts
- Patrik Kincl vs. Piotr Wawrzyniak – for unified middleweight title
- Makwan Amirkhani vs. Mago Machaev – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Ronald Paradeiser vs. Attila Korkmaz – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Vladimir Lengal vs. Daniel Torres – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Mateusz Legierski vs. Matous Kohout – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Marcel Grabinski vs. Acoidan Duque – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Hafeni Nafuka vs. Predrag Bogdanovic – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
- Akonne Wanliss vs. Sahil Siraj – Tipsport Gamechanger bout
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