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Fight Facts: KSW 49



Fight Facts is a breakdown of all of the interesting information and cage curiosities on every card, with some puns, references and portmanteaus to keep things fun. These deep stat dives delve into the numbers, providing historical context and telling the stories behind those numbers.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF KSW FIGHTS: 469
TOTAL NUMBER OF KSW EVENTS: 55

Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki on Saturday brought a championship doubleheader to Gdansk, Poland. KSW 49 featured a fighter with the worst luck imaginable, a high-flying champion and a welterweight kingpin with a massive 94 percent finishing rate.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME: Seven Polish-born fighters faced off against foreign opponents at this event, and of those seven, only Leszek Krakowski came away with a win.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIC: By demolishing Krystian Kaszubowski with one punch, Roberto Soldic successfully defended his welterweight title. In his 16 career victories, he has finished 15 opponents, including nine in the first round.

THEY CALL HIM ‘ROBOCOP’: Needing only 85 seconds to remove Kaszubowski from the ranks of the unbeaten, Soldic picked up the eighth-fastest finish in KSW championship history, and the second-quickest at welterweight. Borys Mankowski tapped David Zawada in 80 seconds at KSW 29 in 2014 to defend his 170-pound strap.

CRAZIES GO HOME: Originally slated as the main event, the middleweight title matchup between Scott Askham and Michal Materla was slotted to the co-main event out of concerns there would be violence and potential riots following the Soldic-Kaszubowski fight. A similar situation happened when the Ultimate Fighting Championship traveled to Gdansk for UFC Fight Night 118 in October 2017, when a match was scuttled out of concerns that extreme fans of a local football team would turn violent.

BRITISH INVASION: Askham scored a third-round flying knee knockout of Materla to capture the vacant middleweight belt, the second such stoppage of its kind in KSW history.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?: Materla is on the losing end of both flying knee finishes in company history, previously losing in the first round to Mamed Khalidov.

ERLA TAM STORM: Materla competed in his seventh title fight, tied with Khalidov, Borys Mankowski and Tomasz Narkun for the most in promotional history. The bout was also his 23rd, breaking a tie with the recently retired Khalidov for the most all-time.

THERE IS NO KAROL IN HR: In losing by knockout to Damian Grabowski, Karol Bedorf suffered his fifth loss inside the promotion, the most in KSW heavyweight history. While Mariusz Pudzianowski holds six losses in the KSW cage, two of his defeats came in the super heavyweight division.

ABOUT WHAT WE EXPECTED: Erko Jun flattened Akop Szostak in 36 seconds, earning the fifth-fastest knockout in KSW heavyweight history.

IT’S WHAT HE DO: Jun scored his third knockout in as many appearances with the promotion. Only nine other KSW fighters have amassed more knockout finishes than the heavyweight, and Materla stands alone with eight.

BRING ’EM ON: Antun Racic’s rematch with Pawel Politylo was the seventh bout scheduled at bantamweight organizational history. Racic’s win -- his third -- put him in sole possession with the most victories in the division’s short history.

A WIN’S A WIN: Racic has won all four of his KSW bouts by decision, tying Jan Blachowicz, Jacek Buczko and Kamil Szymuszowski for the most consecutive wins on the scorecards in company history.

GOT TO LET THEM FIGHT OUT OF IT: Luis Henrique Barbosa de Oliveira made his successful promotional debut, albeit controversially, by earning a technical submission guillotine choke victory over Michal Andryszak. The submission was the fifth in KSW history in the referee was forced to intervene and the second by guillotine.

MUCH MORE APT TO DRAW: In the opening bout, Krakowski defeated Michael Dubois by majority decision -- a result that has now happened 18 times in KSW. In comparison, there have been 19 split decisions across organizational history.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into KSW 49, Kaszubowski had never been defeated (seven fights), Oliveira had never competed in Europe (17 fights) and Dubois had never gone the distance (16 fights).

WHAT CURSE?: Askham tempted fate by walking out to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, only to score a knockout victory and earn a championship belt. In comparison, fighters over in the UFC have won just above 26 percent of their bouts when accompanied by that track.

HOW DID YOU SWING THAT ONE?: Due to legal reasons, UFC fighters are not allowed to walk out to Metallica songs. The same cannot be said for KSW, as Bedorf made his walk to the cage with Metallica’s “Sad But True” playing behind him. He lost by knockout.

Sherdog contributing editor Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012 and working for Vice Sports and Combat Docket along the way, he put together many fight result and entrance music databases to better study the sport. You can find him on twitter at @jaypettry.
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