KSW 56: Roberto Soldic dominates & Filip Pejic scores one of fastest ever KOs

by croatiaweek
November 15, 2020
in Sport

Roberto Soldic in action last night

KSW 56 took place last night from Lodz, Poland, and there was a Poland vs. Croatia theme for the evening. Croatian athletes went 2-2 on what was an exciting night of action.

In the main event KSW welterweight champion Roberto Soldic (18-3) won a one-sided fight against KSW legend Michal Materla (29-8). It was Soldic’s debut at middleweight and he looked outstanding as he dominated the former champion en route to a first-round TKO win. Speaking in the post-fight interview, he alluded to a potential title fight against KSW middleweight champion Mamed Khalidov.

Victory for Soldic

While Soldic and Croatia won in the main event, unfortunately, Zagreb’s Ivan Erslan (9-1) fell short in his title fight against light heavyweight champion Tomasz Narkun (18-3) in the co-main event. Despite looking the better fighter and landing harder shots in the first round, Erslan got caught by a punch early in the second round and was submitted shortly after. A first career loss for Erslan but no doubt the 28-year-old will be back.

Erslan in action

Filip ‘Nitro’ Pejic (15-4-2) stepped up on less than two weeks’ notice and scored one of the fastest KOs in KSW history. Twelve seconds is all it took for the Pejic to dispatch a very tough Sebastian Rajewski (9-6) and the Croatian couldn’t hold back his emotions following the victory as he dedicated it to his family. Lastly, despite a valiant performance, Argentinian-Croatian Francisco Barrio (7-2) lost a hard-fought decision to rising Polish star Mateusz Legierski (7-0) on what was his debut in KSW.