Carnage Media

By Clayton Skulina

As I sit down to think about Oktagon 78, I can’t get over the fact that this card is way more than meets the eye. Despite being headlined by the King of Germany himself, Christian Eckerlin, this card faced disaster after disaster 48 hours before first bell. And yet, somehow, this card continued and ended up being a spectacular show. From canceled fights to lost belts, this card still managed to deliver some electric finishes and entertained throughout the night.

Oktagon 78 took place in my favorite city in Germany, Cologne. Home of a massive cathedral and a popular spot for tourism, Oktagon saw an opportunity to make a statement by building a card with Christian Eckerlin as the main event and Frederic Vosgrone as the co-main event (see my last story for what went down with him at Oktagon 76), and a bantamweight title fight between Igor Severino (yes, the guy who was cut from the UFC for biting his opponent- MMA is a crazy sport), and Kurshed Kakhorov. Everything was falling into place- until the day before the show. First, a preliminary fight falls off due to injury. Strike one. Then, Vosgrone tore a muscle, causing him to pull out of his fight and making the card lose one of its biggest German stars. Strike two. Then, Kakhorov gets sick after looking ill on the scale and pulls out of the title fight. Strike three.

The card took place in a hockey arena near the Rhine River, and there were thousands of fans lined up outside for over an hour before the first bell. Fight number one reminded me of my MMA roots- with an amateur fight, the first I’ve seen in Europe. In Germany, amateurs wear shin pads and 8 oz gloves, and cannot use knees or elbows during their fights, but they can throw headkicks. With larger gloves and less experience, I wasn’t expecting much when Michael Obodozie (4-0 am) took on Chiril Negru (13-2 am) to kick off the show. But when Obodozie ended Negru’s night with a right hook after 19 seconds, I was both impressed and shocked as the man celebrated with his fellow countrymen. Great way to start the show! After two more fights, Marek Bartl (16-14) of Czechia took on Kennedy Rayomba (6-6) of Germany. Bartl, who competed in Hamburg last June at the first show I attended, lived up to his German assassin moniker with a spinning back elbow KO 3 minutes into the first round. His incredible knockout won him a performance bonus afterward, and with 6 fights in the last 13 months, I’m wondering if we’ll see him again before the end of the year. After rising star Tamerlan Dulatov (3-0) won his fight with a 52-second KO, I was already convinced we had something special lined up for the main card.

After ex-German paratrooper Patrick Vespaziani (6-2) utilized strong ground and pound to finish Dutch fighter Olutobi Ayodeji Kalejaiye (9-9), and Cihad Akipa (10-2) finished David Piechaczek (4-2) via strikes in the second round, Cologne was fired up. The fans were into every fight, and the suspense was building for the final three fights. After a lackluster decision win for Kasim Aras (11-5), the crowd exploded for women’s bantamweight rising star and German national Alina Dalaslan (4-0) taking on Katharina Lehner (9-8), a fellow German who trains out of Denver, CO with the likes of Raquel Pennington and Neil Magny (who I got to meet earlier in the night- extremely cool guy). The crowd was very clearly backing Alina, who was coming off a spinning back elbow KO in Frankfurt, but most were surprised when she won the first round despite appearing to chase Katherina (remember- Oktagon has open scoring after each round) en route to a UD victory. I caught up with Katharina’s team after the show, and they were extremely baffled that she lost the fight, particularly the first round.

Few people in my life have truly polarized everyone around them. Christian Eckerlin (17-8) is on that short list, as the crowd erupted during his entrance. The King of Germany was set to take on Croatian Ivica Trušček (45-39), whose resume includes fights against UFC middleweight Abus Magomedov and former UFC Champion Islam Makhachev, was ready to go put on a show in front of a German audience watching live on free-to-air TV, a first for Germany. However, those fans would be disappointed once again, as Eckerlin was finished via 1st round TKO. The silence, like in Hamburg, was absolutely deafening. The king was down for a couple of extra minutes in the cage, and left fans wondering if Father Time was catching up to the German superstar.

So what did I think of this card? It had disaster written all over it from the beginning, and I really wasn’t super thrilled that two of the main fights I wanted to see got canceled at the last minute. Despite this, I truly believe this card delivered as best it could. It had great finishes and added to some great storylines within the Oktagon universe, the biggest being what’s next for Christian Eckerlin. At 38, with some bad losses mixed in, the German standout is at a bit of a crossroads. My prediction- I think Oktagon will keep him on the sidelines until next year and allow him to headline the show at Frankfurt’s soccer stadium next September, which also happens to be his hometown. It would be the perfect setup for the man who helped build German MMA into what it is today.

As always, a huge thank you to Scott Langdon and the Oktagon MMA team for hosting me, and I highly recommend checking out one of their shows if you get the chance to do so. Make sure to follow Carnage Media on all the social media platforms @carnagemediappv to stay up to date on all of our events!