MMA

Apollo defeated the darling of the German public Eckerlin! He scored his fifth scalp in the Oktagon

The main preliminary bout of the Oktagon 49 tournament was handled by Christian Eckerlin and Leandro Silva. The home favourite received a huge ovation and was loudly supported during the match, but in the end he had to bow to the Brazilian.

Published

7 months ago

18. 11. 2023

Michael Pastva

Eckerlin, Apollo, Oktagon — Zdroj: Oktagon MMA

Oktagon 49

The biggest draw for the German fans was the Christian Eckerlin vs. Leandro Silva match. The former is a huge favourite of theirs, and he also won fans in domestic waters.

Apollo Silva is also interesting for the fans, he does not choose his opponents, in the Oktagon he defeated Bojan Velickovic, Marcel Grabinski, Robert Bryczek or Alex Lohoré, he almost defeated David Kozma.

As usual, Eckerlin’s succession quickly brought the fans in the hall out of their seats. Apollo, on the other hand, got booed, but that was to be expected considering who he was going into the game with.

Apollo was a fairly big favorite, but Eckerlin had claimed him, so he must have been aware of his undeniable qualities. From the start of the match, the hall was buzzing, supporting their favourite in his quest for victory.

Eckerlin vs. Apollo fight

The first round was mostly standing and we could watch a tactical waiting game. There were only partial strikes but none looked in any way shaky.

With a minute and a half left in the opening round, Apollo took Eckerlin to the ground and never let him go. He took the first round, which up to that point had been more than even.

Eckerlin improved in the second round and became active in the standup. He landed a few punches, but Apollo held the center and tried to push him to the canvas to get him to the ground again.

He was eventually able to do that after landing a hard punch, but the finish didn’t happen thanks to the German’s agility. Eckerlin cashed in more shots on the ground, but held on to resist until the end of the second round.

Going into the third round, the German had to go with the Brazilian’s tactics to finish him. Apollo challenged him with punches, this angered Eckerlin and threw him to the ground. Apollo caught his leg, yet cashed in several times.

Eckerlin recovered and continued to fight on the ground as Apollo wasn’t going to get up. The final minute offered a stand-up shootout in which Eckerlin took one punch and Apollo saw the fight to a points decision.

Unsurprisingly, he ended up being the winner, which was not taken lightly by the fans in the arena. Eckerlin put on a good performance, but it just wasn’t enough this time.