I had the pleasure of doing the ringside commentary once again for FEN 3 a few weeks ago in Wrocław, Poland and here are a few of my thoughts.
Hala Stulecia (Centennial Hall) - Wrocław, Poland
Pre-show setup
The setting at Centennial Hall was much better in my opinion if FEN wants to compete with other top fighting promotions like KSW in Poland. The place appeared to be sold out and the crowd was hot, especially for the local fighters from Wrocław.
As the starting time drew near, several fighters could be seen in the arena. As fans started to file into the building the fighters were approached by several of them and they always seemed friendly and open and willing to sign an autograph and pose for a picture.
Pre-show with Tomasz Makowski, Dawid Mora, Bartosz Batra and Paweł Jędrzejczyk
Although it might not be the first choice for some people I gave the fight of the night to Dawid Mora and Leo Kostic. The guts of Mora really impressed me in this one and he proved that he is not only tough as nails, but most likely a future heavyweight contender.
The noticeable height difference was the first thing you could see as these two stood toe to toe before the fight. Kostic had a 14 centimeter (5.5 inches) height advantage. Both men are built like brick houses. Mora reminds me of David Tua, the former Samoan heavyweight boxer who retired last year.
Right from the word go these guys made it clear that they wanted to slug it out. At times Mora was not defending himself and was leaving himself open to big, brutal shots from Kostic, but the most incredible thing was that he didn’t seem to be bothered by these shots in the slightest. Mora almost seemed to be daring Kostic to hit him with his best shot and Kostic obliged many times, but Mora just shrugged them off.
Mora then decided to change his strategy and try to take things to the ground. After the fight I spoke with Mora who said it was his strategy to try to tire Kostic out, and that strategy evidently paid off. He took several hard shots during the fight and some punishment on the ground, but after only one round “The Animal” Leo Kostic had been tamed as he could not come out of his corner for round two. In fact, he never even made it back to his corner after round one as he laid there for several minutes on mat after the bell.
Keep your eye on Mora, I think he has a fantastic combination of strength, muay Thai, ground work and sheer toughness that will make him a star one day. He only needs to get more experience and work on his defense a bit.
Dawid Mora post fight
For every yin there must be a yang and for as great as the Mora fight was the fight between the debuting Tyberiusz Kowalczyk, former strongman competitor and local politician, and the Lithuanian Tomas Vaicickas, this was most certainly was the complete opposite.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much of a fight here because I did my homework before the event and could predict what was about to happen. I only feel sorry for the fans who didn’t and paid to see a fight and got this instead.
I watched quite a number of Vaicickas’ fights on Youtube before the event and all of them followed the same pattern: Vaicickas goes down in the opening seconds from a punch or other strike and his opponent jumps on top of him and wails on him quickly and gets the TKO stoppage due to strikes. If something like this happens now and again, it’s to be expected, but not a single fight of Vaicickas’ has gone past the 2:00 mark in the first round in his illustrious 1 - 7 career. Basically he’s the Lithuanian Bob Sapp. If you don’t get that reference check out my June 2013 blog.
Anyway, this fight was exactly what I thought it would be. Vaicickas was down on the ground within 30 seconds after taking a few shots and not only that, but he actually slid out of the ring under the bottom rope on his stomach to avoid taking any more. The bell rang and I thought the fight was over, but unfortunately for Vaicickas he would have to resume the fight and work a bit harder for his money. The ref evidently only called for a break since Kowalczyk was striking a man who was partially out of the ring.
A few seconds later Kowalczyk swung three times at his opponent and clearly missed each strike, which somehow caused Vaicickas to fall onto his stomach for a second time and slide under the bottom rope. This was evidently enough for the referee to stop the fight and give the victory to Kowalczyk, who celebrated in the ring like a hero.
The bottom line is guys like Vaicickas and Bob Sapp shouldn’t even be allowed in the sport if it’s to maintain its credibility and Kowalczyk still remains untested as a mixed martial artist.
The co-main event of the evening was a quick one, ending inside a minute of round 1 when a few quick left hands from Tymoteusz Świątek knocked out the Swede Martin Fouda. Fouda was out cold before the even hit the mat.
Martin Fouda during his ring entrance
The main event saw two fighters who most certainly were deserving to be in that spot in Tomasz Makowski and Antoine Habash, but unfortunately we never got to see how it should have went down.
In my opinion Habash won round one, using his speed, agility and reach advantage. He managed to find his range right from the start and was able to pick off Makowski with long range jabs and push kicks for the majority of the round. As round two opened up Makowski seemed a bit more comfortable, landing more strikes, but not long into the round he took a few low kicks and you could see his knee buckle. Then Habash uncorked another huge low kick that destroyed the knee of Makowski.
At first it seemed to me like he may have dislocated his knee, but for a moment you could also see that his knee was just hanging off of his thigh like a wet piece of spaghetti. The final verdict was that Habash had completely decapitated his knee ligaments making it impossible for him to even stand.
My hat is off to Makowski, who was quite obviously in a great deal of pain and toughed it out until he was stretchered out of the arena and to a hospital. I wish him the best in his recovery. Hopefully we’ll see him in FEN again soon.
The guest of honor for the evening was Cris “Cyborg” Justino. She presented the trophies to Sylwia Juśkiewicz and Lena Ovchynnikova after the women’s K-1 fight. I also got a chance to catch up with her after the main event and interview her about several topics including her thoughts on the FEN 3 event, the Ronda Rousey situation, her next fight and much more. She seemed like a very approachable, friendly and classy lady. If you haven’t seen the interview yet, check it out here.
Overall FEN 3 was a great event and had some great fights that ran the gambit of emotions. I’m already looking forward to FEN 4 in August. Hopefully I will see you there. Were you at the event? Did you watch on FightBox or online on Fightboxlive.com? What did you think? Feel free to send me and e-mail or contact me on social media.
- Daniel Austin (Don Roid)
post show with Tymoteusz Świątek and Sylwia Juśkiewicz
Post fight press conference
