MMA

This is how a new champion was born! See how Keita came to the title in the Octagon

Octagon has a new champion! Losene Keita has once again proven that he’s a problem and that he’s a huge prospect that will be hard to sustain long term. He destroyed Ivan Buchinger in Frankfurt. What was his path to the title?

Published

2 years ago

5. 6. 2022

Pavel Langr

Losene Keita came into the Octagon as a complete unknown fighter. He first introduced himself to the fans in December at OKTAGON 29. He was facing Karol Rysavy, a big favourite in the cage and in very good shape. Understandably, he was the favourite.

But something happened that nobody expected. Keita surprised Rysavy with a huge pressure, incredible speed and at the same time hardness of his shots. After less than three minutes, it was over. The talented foreigner won over the Czechoslovak audience and the sensation was taken care of.

After a valuable scalp, Keita asked for the biggest name. He wanted a fight with Ivan Buchinger. But before that, he had another fight to decide the next challenger to the Slovakian legend. So Keita took on Ronald Paradeiser.

It was a question of how Keita would be able to deal with Rony’s complexity and ground skills. The drama was taken care of. Plus, Paradeiser had lost to Buchinger before very quickly. Great room for any speculation.

Keita had trouble with the Slovakian talent at first, but he didn’t slow down and gradually started to take the reins of the match clearly on his side. Paradeiser held on to the end but lost deservedly on points. There was no stopping Keita and Buchinger.

And it came at the opening of a new era. The Octagon headed to Germany and the main event at the Frankfurt tournament was a title fight between Buchinger and Keita. The slight favourite was “Buki”, who was confident, especially after seeing how he stood up to Keita Paradeiser.

Buchinger believed in his wrestling and that he could take the match to the ground. But when the match came, it didn’t. Keita was incredibly fast again, he could hit hard, he could read all of Buchinger’s takedown attempts.

You could see the Slovakian legend was in trouble. Buchinger had trouble dodging his opponent’s shots and eventually lost via TKO after about three minutes. Keita became the lightweight champion.