The protagonists had already set the tone for the fight evening on Saturday in Munich, on Friday morning at the weigh-in, then a few hours later at the press conference. And it was more of a rough nature, as happens in boxing and martial arts when the testosterone is boiling over.
During the weigh-in, heavyweight champion Hatef “Boss” Moeil pushed his challenger Lazar Todev backwards while standing nose-to-nose after sniffing him provocatively. During the question and answer session, pleasantries flew back and forth – and in the end the Holiday Inn in Unterhaching even had to fear for its facilities.
“Shut up,” “Shut up,” “You’re stupid,” that’s how the dialogue went. Until Moeil finally lost his temper. He stood up, tried to attack Todev. Chairs and a table fell over, the gold belt flew through the air, and it was later said that one of the two promoters suffered a small cut on his head. And even later, namely shortly before the start of the fight evening on Saturday, it was clear: Moeil was not coming, the main act was cancelled. The boss apparently did not accept a reduction in his salary because of the incident, which he let his 570,000 Instagram followers know in detail soon afterwards.
Welcome to Oktagon, a variety of the ultra-hard combat sport Mixed Martial Arts (MMA): MMA is more or less a fight in a cage behind a chain-link fence that has hardly any taboos. There is no head protection, the gloves are much less padded than in boxing, the fingers are free so that you can grab your opponent. You can still hit someone on the ground, even with an elbow to the head. Taboos include scratching, biting, spitting, grabbing the mouth and violence against soft tissues, larynx and neck. But the truth is that the mops are not wiping up sweat from the floor, but rather blood, a lot of which is dripping onto the floor that evening.
The MMA night is FSK 18 and young people are not allowed to enter
For Oktagon MMA, the organizer from Eastern Europe, which attracted 12,000 spectators to the fights in the SAP Garden on Saturday, skirmishes like the one between Moeil and Todev are part of the game. The night and its surroundings, worn in the cage by undoubtedly highly ambitious and highly trained duelists, are more reminiscent of gladiator fights in ancient Rome than of boxing. The Oktagon founders Pavol Neruda and Ondrej Novotny also have their fighters compete in reality shows: a kind of fight club in the jungle camp. Except that the bloody, brilliant beating film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton still had a certain socially critical tone. In Frankfurt at the end of October, almost 60,000 fans streamed into the football stadium to watch Oktagon. The organizers spoke of a new world record.
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The organizers were also surprised that the main act was canceled in Munich. Although everything doesn’t have to be bad for storytelling: “The fighters are animals, but Moeil hurt the event and Todev hurt, we have to talk about that,” Novotny said later when the evening was over. But the spectators, some of whom had paid triple-digit ticket amounts, acknowledged the news of the fight’s cancellation in the hall with shrill whistles.
Other fighters came even more into the limelight, such as Sebastian “Mettbrötchen” Herzberg, who, according to the organizers, was undefeated for six years, but was quickly turned into Mett by Patrick “Il Gladiatore” Vespaziani in the heavyweight division. Just this much: The wipers had a particularly busy time here. Or young man Max “Stifler” Holzer, who defeated Eugen Black-Dell, but after the fight looked worse than anyone else with his swollen eye and other injuries.
It was then that we understood that this MMA night was based on the premise of FSK 18. Young people were prohibited from entering. However, the fans who were allowed in seemed to like what they saw. “The blood, the testo, that’s part of it,” said Luis, 19, from Stuttgart, who preferred not to give his last name. For Alina Walter – one of the few women in the audience – it was the third Octagon evening. The 21-year-old was also happy to get involved in this slightly different pre-Christmas magic: “We have great seats, the show acts between the fights are great. And the fights themselves are cool too. It’s okay if men beat each other up, I think women’s fights are worse. Just knocking you unconscious doesn’t have to be the case.” For the sake of completeness: There are also women’s fights in mixed martial arts, but none were on the program in Munich.
However, the Brazilian Kaik Brito was almost unconscious when Ion “Dracula” Surdu from Romania hit him badly with an elbow check and high kick to the neck in the welterweight title fight. Brito was then knocked out at the chain link fence – in the absence of Moeil and Todev, the new main fight of the evening was over within a very short time. Typical fighter self-image during the short interview while still in the cage: “I’m not surprised, in my head I’ve always been a champion,” said Surdu. Later at the press conference, which was extremely tame due to the lack of arguments, Surdu, who was now wearing a suit and a Gunther von Hagens hat, added: “I feel like I’ve won a million dollars. I love this sport.”
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