MMA
Oktagon promoter Novotny revealed 5 fighters whose participation in Tipsport Gamechanger was not far away
Tipsport Gamechanger is coming up and we know that some of the stars that have been announced will not appear in the Oktagon project. However, the organization’s promoter Ondrej Novotny also revealed five names that were far from participating in the 300,000 euro tournament.
Currently we know that Oktagon had to accept the non-participation of Kaiko Brito or Patrik Kinceloe, the welterweight and middleweight champions. While Brito is still healing his injuries and wants to be “free-handed”, Kinclo will have a rematch with Karlos Vemola.
Otherwise, we can definitely look forward to David Kozma, Leandro Silva, Bojan Velickovic, Christian Eckerlin, Christian Jungwirth, Máté Kertész, Louis Glismann, Samuel Kristofich, Alex Lohoré, Melvin Van Suijdam, Andreas Michailidis, Radovan Úškrt, Ion Suru, Tata Primera, Amiran Gogoladze, Milos Janičič, John Hathaway and Łukasz Siwiecz.
So it is obvious that Oktagon will offer very high quality fights of really good fighters. The words about the European Champions League are undoubtedly fulfilled, although there may still be some of those changes.
In addition, Oktagon promoter Ondrej Novotny revealed five interesting names whose participation in Gamechanger was not far off.
Who was in the game and why didn’t it work out?
First of all, Novotny mentioned English fighter Jim Wallhead, currently 117th in the Fight Matrix Welterweight World Rankings, who was even ranked a great 30th in 2012. He has experience in the UFC or Bellator.
The other name was Rhys McKee, another man who got a taste of the UFC and is now ranked 130th within the Welterweight division. It’s worth noting that Wallhead is scheduled to face McKee in a title fight in the Cage Warriors organization, according to Novotny. Both, meanwhile, wanted to hit Gamechanger.
Also in play was the acquisition of Andreas Gustafsson (ranked 169th in the middleweight rankings) or Oskar Szczepaniak, who Novotny described as one of the most interesting Polish prospects, who was also wanted by the fans.
The last name is Stefano Paterno, currently the 178th ranked fighter within the Welterweight division. However, he’s awaiting possible negotiations with the UFC, which understandably made Gamechanger a no-show, as he would have to commit to the Octagon for a full year. That is, if he makes it to the finals.
“We had these name arrangements, but different people, different organizations or different managements threw pitchforks into them, even though the fighters wanted to participate a lot. And there were many more names, but here it was hand in glove. I’m giving you an insight behind the scenes to show you how tough and lively it is,” Novotny expressed in his MMA Flight Around the World podcast.
Source: Octagon MMA, MMA Around the World
