KSW Owners on Forbes Most Influential List
For the fourth straight year, Maciej Kawulski and Martin Lewandowski (pictured above) have been listed among on ‘The Most Influential People in Polish Sport’ by Forbes.
This year the KSW co-owners placed 16th, up twelve places from last year for their highest ever ranking on this prestigious list. Number one this year is Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski and other notable high entrants includes Polish FA chairman Zbigniew Boniek, former NBA player Marcin Gortat, and rising tennis star Iga Świątek.
Over the past year KSW has seen further growth both domestically and internationally. In September last year a celebratory KSW 50 event took place in London, England, while KSW 51 saw a hugely successful debut event in Zagreb, Croatia. 2019 ended with another sell-out event at the Arena Gliwice in Poland with 15,000 fans in attendance.
2020 provided many challenges for the sporting world due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, KSW launched the first season of the hit reality TV show ‘Tylko Jeden’ (translated to ‘Only One’), a show in which contestants competed for a KSW contract. During the entire season the viewing figures for Tylko Jeden rated the show as one of the most watched programmes on Polish television.
Live KSW events returned in July. Modified with little to no crowds in attendance, these events proved to be very successful for domestic & international PPV. During this time we saw Mamed Khalidov regain the middleweight title with viral headkick knockout, the MMA debut of international heavyweight boxing champion Izu Ugonoh, the return of Polish MMA legend Tomasz Drwal, and the middleweight debut of welterweight champion Roberto Soldic.
The final event for KSW in 2020 takes place December 19th. KSW 57 will feature a heavyweight title fight between champion Phil De Fries (18-6) and veteran Michal Kita (20-11-1) while Croatia’s Antun Racic (24-8-1) will make the first defense of his KSW bantamweight title against a yet-to-be-announced opponent.
Roberto Villa is the CEO, Founder, Executive Writer, Senior Editor of FightBook MMA. Has a passion for Combat Sports and also a podcast host for Sitting Ringside. He’s also a former MMA fighter and Kickboxer.
