Salahdine Parnasse wins interim featherweight title at KSW 48 | KSW
Parnasse is widely regarded as one of the biggest prospects in Europe. He’ll look to have a successful first featherweight title defense in December.
KSW 52 is the leading European promotion’s final offering of 2019, and it promises to be one of their biggest of the year. For the first time in their history, KSW will put on six events in a year, all of which culminates with the aforementioned show on Saturday, December 7th, in Gliwice, Poland. To help bolster the card, a title fight has already been added to the lineup—with interim featherweight champion Salahdine Parnasse defending his belt for the first time against veteran of the European scene, Ivan Buchinger.
Parnasse (13-0-1) has already defeated many of the biggest names in the KSW featherweight division, since he made his promotional debut in 2017. The 21-year-old got his hand raised against Lukasz Rajewski at KSW 41, and followed that performance up with victories over two previous champions Artur Sowinski and Marcin ‘The Polish Zombie’ Wrzosek. In his last outing, back in April, the undefeated French prospect claimed the interim featherweight title in the main event of KSW 48. He took the title with a TKO finish over Roman Szymanski in the second round. The interim title was introduced after undisputed champion, Mateusz Gamrot, took a hiatus from MMA earlier this year.
Looking to put the first blemish on Salahdine’s record, and take the belt in the process, will be former M-1 and Cage Warriors champion, Ivan Buchinger (36-6). Buchinger will be making his KSW debut off the back of a four-fight winning streak—with all four wins coming by way of submission. Buchinger has wins over Mansour Barnaoui and Stevie Ray on his record, which has seen the Slovakian finish 30 of his of his 36 professional victories.
KSW 52 is expected to be headlined by a non-title, catchweight bout featuring Polish MMA icon, Mamed Khalidov. Khalidov is coming out of retirement to take on middleweight champion, Scott Askham. In the co-main event, Olympic medalists Damian Janikowski and Szymon Kolecki are also set to collide, in a battle between Greco-Roman wrestler and weightlifter.