Oktagon MMA co-founder Pavol Neruda has overseen the remarkable rise of the Czech-Slovak fight promotion to become one of the biggest success stories in MMA over the last couple of years. Now he has his sights set on the UFC’s attendance record.
Only three MMA promotions, UFC, KSW and PRIDE, have attracted attendances in excess of 50,000, and the European fight promotion plans on adding their name to that exclusive list when Oktagon 62 takes place at the 55,000-seat Deutsche Bank Park stadium, in Frankfurt, Germany which is currently hosting matches at the UEFA European Championships.
The promotion will head to the huge venue for an event on October 12, where two huge stars of the German MMA scene, Christian Eckerlin and Christian Jungwirth, will face off in an all-German welterweight showdown that has captured the imagination of fight fans in the country.
The event is already on track to be Oktagon’s biggest event of all time, and comes hot on the heels of the organisation’s first football stadium show, Oktagon 58, which took place at Slavia Prague’s Eden Stadium in June.
That event saw a crowd of 28,000 pack the home of Slavia Prague FC. Now Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt will throw open the doors to their home stadium, with Neruda and Oktagon looking to match, or surpass, the biggest attendance total ever achieved by the sport’s top promotion.
The UFC’s biggest-ever show saw 57,127 pack Marvel Stadium in Melbourne for UFC 243, as Israel Adesanya dethroned Robert Whittaker to capture the undisputed UFC middleweight title in October 2019.
Now Neruda hopes to do even better, with ticket sales passing the 50,000 mark three months before fight night in Frankfurt.
“It is absolutely unbelievable, we feel so grateful for the fans and the position they have afforded us in Germany. It is really not easy to sell even 20,000,” said Neruda.
“We are selling that amount regularly in Czechia, Germany and Slovakia. It might look easy, because we are so lucky to have people here, but in the end it is a lot of effort that needs to be put in to make it happen.”
The promotion had preciously held events in an outdoor stadium, with the tennis showcourt on the Prague island of Stvanice hosting their summer spectaculars in the past. But now, with the promotion admitting that they had outgrown the popular venue, they turned their attention to bigger venues, with Eden Stadium delivering an electric night of fights in Prague last month.
Now Oktagon are looking to take their promotion to a different level with their upcoming event in Frankfurt. It’s a daunting task, but the enthusiasm and commitment to delivering fan-friendly events has made Oktagon a home-run success in Germany already, and the ticket sales so far have backed that up.
“When we announced the Eintracht Frankfurt stadium move, we did not know what to expect. It is a huge stadium, a colosseum and an unbelievably huge venue,” said Neruda.
“We were honestly thinking that if we could get more than 40,000 people in there, then anything above would be a success. It is our first stadium show here and it is absolutely massive. After two months, we have 50,000.
“It is absolutely crazy, mind-blowing and still selling really well and tracking towards an even bigger number. There are just 8,000 left (until we surpass the UFC’s highest attendance), so we are so close and that would mean so much.”
Oktagon was co-founded by Neruda, a Slovak, and Ondrej Novotny, a Czech, with the view to providing a platform for athletes from their respective nations, and shows for their respective groups of fans. But the promotion has exploded in popularity, and their success in Germany, which has been a largely untapped market as a host for big events, has been remarkable.
Now Oktagon is looking to produce one of the great MMA events in European MMA history, and the reaction of the fans has given Neruda cause for real optimism and excitement as the run-up to fight night starts to gather pace.
“We thought we had strong momentum after selling the biggest arena in Cologne, and that now was the time to do a huge stadium – even if we thought it might be too much. It took a lot of courage, but we now see that momentum was right,” he explained.
“We sold 50,000 tickets and people in Germany now want to talk with us. All of the big sponsors are keen to chat to us because they want to be there with us. We are negotiating a huge TV deal that would make us very big in Germany if it is a success, and we also have something incredible planned for the halftime show.
“We now have a really huge name locked in for that, it is one of the biggest German stars from the music industry and it will underline what we are trying to say to people. We are a family entertainment, we are for you.
“We know some people might be hesitant because it is MMA, but now the world can see this event is for everyone.”
As well as showcasing their special brand of fan-friendly MMA, a huge show in Frankfurt gives Oktagon the chance to write their name into the record books by delivering one of the biggest attendances in MMA history.
That mark is held by PRIDE Shockwave, which attracted a crowd of 71,000 to the Tokyo National Stadium in 2002. Second on the list is KSW 39, the Polish promotion’s iconic “Colosseum” show that drew 57,766 to Stadion PGE Narodowy in May 2017. UFC 243: Whittaker vs. Adesanya sits third in the all-time list at 57,127.
Topping the UFC’s highest attendance and breaking into the all-time top three would represent a colossal achievement for Oktagon, as Neruda explained.
“It would mark an absolutely huge milestone in the growth and the maturity of Oktagon as a company. This will be a huge step for us, and it will tell the world how huge we are.
“People will stop underestimating us; we tell people how big we are, that we are the biggest MMA promotion in Europe, but people are always reluctant to believe us and want us to calm down a little bit. I understand that people don’t know us so they are allowed to be a bit hesitant or reluctant.
“But this will make it undisputed and undeniable just how big we are.”
Neruda continued, saying that breaking the UFC’s record, and possibly KSW’s, would make a huge statement about Oktagon’s standing in global MMA.
“From that moment, I think it will be clear to everyone that we are the second biggest promotion in the world after the UFC,” he stated.
“Because no one else is doing what we are doing. KSW are doing really well, selling good numbers of tickets and have their own records they have set as well, but we will be bigger.
“We have sold more tickets throughout the year and that would cement our place as Number 2 in the world.”
