KSW lightweight champion Salahdine Parnasse impressively retained his title at the promotion’s final event of 2024.
Parnasse delivered another dominant showing atop the KSW 101: Le Classique card inside París La Défense Arena in France, scoring a destructive ground-and-pound TKO against Wilson Varela, snapping his opponents’ six-fight unbeaten streak.
Parnasse caught Varela with a right cross early in the second stanza and promptly bounced on him, reigning down strikes until the referee was forced to step in and call for the stoppage at the one-minute mark of the round.
With the win, Parnasse moved to 12-2 under the KSW banner and 20-2 overall with a 65% finish rate, including five knockouts and seven submissions.
Salahdine Parnasse re-signed with KSW after receiving lowball offer from the UFC
Parnasse re-signed with KSW in June after fielding offers from other organizations, including the UFC. However, Parnasse’s coach and manager, Stéphane Chaufourier revealed that the UFC’s offer was significantly less than what he was offered to stay with the Poland-based promotion.
“The seesaw is huge,” Chaufourier told RMC Sport. “You should know that I won’t give figures but we had very, very good proposals. We earn two and a half times what we used to earn. So it’s just huge. It’s largely in the six figures, yes, of course. The UFC was between 20 and 30 times less” (h/t MMA Mania).
In the end, Parnasse just wants to fight the best possible opponents available but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to go back to a life of financial instability to do it.
“I want to fight the best, that’s normal, so I’ll end up facing the best fighters,” Parnasse said. “I’ve never chosen a fight in my life, I’ve always fought to make a living. Basically, I worked as a plumber at the town hall of Aubervilliers, and at the same time, I played sports. I continue in this way except that now I don’t have to continue working and I also do this sport to support myself.
“It’s my personal life. It’s a combat sport, it’s a difficult sport and I was still working at the town hall three years ago when I was trying to find stability. Now if I go back to the UFC, I’ll have to work again (laughs) so… But it’s the truth, it’s a truth. Whereas now I can live fully from my sport and I’m very happy, very happy like that. I’m ready to face any opponent I’m offered.”
