European promotion OKTAGON have previously been described by Ariel Helwani as “MMA’s best kept secret”.
They may not have the household names that every fan in the United States would know but this had no impact on their seismic growth in Europe.
This weekend at OKTAGON 62, they’re set to host their second event of the year that will take place in an outdoor football stadium.
The Deutsche Bank Park will host the promotion on October 12 and by hitting huge numbers, the event will bring the fourth largest crowd in the history of the sport and the biggest ever to take place outside of Japan.
OKTAGON 62 Is Set To Break Records In Frankfurt, Germany
Japanese promotions PRIDE and K-1 hold the current reported records for attendance through three events that took place between 2000-2003.
The UFC’s current attendance record stands at 57,127 for UFC 243 where middleweight champions Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker collided at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.
Deutsche Bank Park is the home of German Bundesliga team Eintracht Frankfurt and with additional capacity added due to the lack of needing a football pitch in the middle, will house 60,000 this Saturday night.
The main event features two favorites of the home crowd colliding as Christian Eckerlin and Christian Jungwirth battle it out to see who is the King of Germany.
Co-owner and co-founder Pavol Neruda spoke about how this event has exceeded even their own wild ambitions for the promotion at this stage in it’s life.
“We sold 40,000 within the first 3 weeks, before we even announced many fights, and I think that that shows how we have built a brand that the public can trust. They know that an OKTAGON event is a great experience – somewhere they can go with their friends and have six hours of fun.
We were very ambitious at the beginning, but I have to be honest, I did not see us selling out football stadiums in Germany after only 8 years! We were dreaming, but now it is a reality, and we are super excited.”
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