KSW 43: Janikowski vs. Bahati - April 14 (OFFICIAL DISCUSSION)

KSW 43
April 14, 2018
Atlas Arena
Łódź, Poland

Main Card:
Damian Janikowski (2-0)     vs.          (8-3) Yannick Bahati 
Main Event | Middleweight | 185 lbs (84 kg)
Michał Andryszak (20-6)      vs.          (14-6) Phil De Fries    
Co-Main Event |  Title Fight | Heavyweight | 265 lbs (120 kg)
Roberto Soldić (13-2)          vs.     (11-1) Dricus Du Plessis
Main Card |  Title Fight | Welterweight | 170 lbs (77 kg)
Artur Sowiński (18-9)           vs.(10-1) Salahdine Parnasse
Main Card | Featherweight | 145 lbs (66 kg)
Łukasz Chlewicki (14-7)         vs.      (23-6) Norman Parke
Main Card | Lightweight | 155 lbs (70 kg)
Michał Michalski (6-2)            vs.      (23-6) David Zawada
Main Card | Welterweight | 170 lbs (77 kg)


KSW returns to the beautiful and historic city of Wroclaw, Poland on April 14th.

Today it was revealed that the event will be headlined by Wroclaw’s very own Olympic hero Damian Janikowski (2-0), Roberto Soldic (13-2) will face Dricus Du Plessis (11-1), and Michal Andryzak (20-6) will compete for the vacant heavyweight title.

Olympic bronze medalist Damian Janikowski made his anticipated MMA debut at the monumental KSW 39 stadium event last May where he stopped American Julio Gallegos with strikes just less than ninety seconds into the first round. The 28-year-old then followed this up with a TKO stoppage win over former champ and vastly more experienced Antoni Chmielewski at KSW 41 in December. This will be Janikowski’s first main event in KSW and he believes a title shot could be looming soon.

At KSW 41 we also saw Roberto Soldic capture the KSW welterweight title with a dominant and superb win over Borys Mankowski. Now he will make his first defense and it will be against South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis, two-weight EFC champion and the main who was originally slated to challenge Mankowski. Both fighters are in their early twenties and are regarded as two of the biggest prospects in MMA.

Finally, after two dominant wins in KSW in 2017, heavyweight monster Michal Andryszak has earned a shot at the vacant title. The 25-year-old is currently riding a six-fight-win-streak, all first round stoppages, and has yet to go the distance in twenty professional MMA wins.

Opponents for both Janikowski and Andryszak will be announced in the coming days.

Good they are getting a new HW champ here soon.

Olympic medalist and national hero Damian Janikowski (2-0) will face former BAMMA and EFC middleweight champion Yannick Bahati (8-3) in the main event of KSW 43 in Wroclaw, Poland on April 14th.

After winning bronze in wrestling at London 2012, Damian Janikowski finally made his anticipated MMA debut at the monumental KSW 39 stadium event last May where he stopped American Julio Gallegos with strikes just less than ninety seconds into the first round. The 28-year-old then followed this up with a TKO stoppage win over former champ and the vastly more experienced Antoni Chmielewski at KSW 41 in December. This will be Janikowski’s first main event in KSW and it will also take place in his hometown. He is relishing this opportunity and is very confident heading into this fight.

Bahati is a dangerous middleweight with a tonne of experience. After a number of wins on the UK scene he was signed by the South African based EFC promotion and would go on to win their middleweight title. While champion there he returned to the UK to win the BAMMA middleweight strap and thus becoming a simultaneous champion in two major promotions. However, he dropped the two titles in two previous fights losing to Dricus Du Plessis, who challenges for the welterweight title at KSW 43, in EFC and Mike Shipman in BAMMA, respectively. Now the 27-year-old has his sights on becoming KSW middleweight champion and Janikowski is just somebody in his way.

In the co-main event Two of Europe’s top heavyweights will compete for the vacant KSW heavyweight title on April 14 at KSW 43 in Wroclaw, Poland as UFC veteran Phil De Fries (14-6) takes on Michal ’Longer’ Andryszak (20-6).

The UK’s Phil De Fries signed with KSW earlier this year following back to back wins over Russian prospect Anton Vyazigin and veteran James Thompson. The 31-year-old has fought all over the world in some of the biggest promotions around including making five appearances in the UFC and has registered twelve stoppage wins. He holds career victories over the likes of Oli Thompson, Brett Rogers, and Rob Broughton. However, he says beating Andryszak and becoming the KSW heavyweight champ would be his biggest accomplishment to date.

The man standing in his way though is 25-year-old Michal Andryszak, a fighter with a 100% finishing rate, nineteen first round stoppages, and who is on a six fight win streak. Andryszak returned to KSW last year, after a three year absence from the promotion, and immediately made his mark with a first round anaconda submission over veteran Michal Kita at the historic KSW 39 event. Then this past December he KO’d former champ Fernando Rodrigues Jr. in less than 30 seconds and he doesn’t plan on going the distance in this title fight on April 14 either.

Big fight saturday Robocop

That's right. I will try to tune in for this one.

KSW 43 will be on Croatian RTL which is one of four biggest national TV channels (something like FOX or CBS in U.S.), what means hundreds of thousands of viewers.

With Roberto Soldić, Antun Račić, Goran Reljić and deal with RTL I could see KSW holding event in Croatia.

Great to hear they are expanding well into Croatia.

The event start in at 1pm

Kingfedor wrote:

The event start in at 1pm

Sucks I missed this one. Hope they have videos up soon after the event.