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European MMA promotion Oktagon has pledged to host one massive stadium show per year before staging a fight card in front of nearly 60,000 fans this weekend, pushing the boundaries of what regional companies can achieve in the sport.
Oktagon set the all-time attendance record for an MMA event outside of Japan in October 2024 when it hosted 59,148 fans at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt – a feat that surpassed the largest attendance ever recorded by the UFC.
The promotion returns to the home of Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt two years on to mark its 10-year anniversary at Oktagon 94, putting on a stacked event headlined by a heated clash between hometown hero Christian Eckerlin and former champion David Kozma.
Ahead of the spectacle, the company announced its new Oktagon Infinity events, confirming these type of showpiece fight cards will become yearly. Düsseldorf’s 50,000 capacity Merkur Spiel-Arena will host the first Oktagon Infinity show in May 2027.
“The demand is growing here in Germany,” co-founder Pavel Neruda told The Independent. “That’s what we want to use.
“We have this amazing deal with RTL [Germany’s public broadcaster] which supports our efforts, and we bring them a lot of fans.
“It’s the perfect environment so people really now are on this wave of MMA, of Oktagon, and I think that this [Oktagon Infinity] is the result.
“Even announcing another stadium next year, you can clearly see that we feel that this is the right time to do such an ambitious project.”
Neruda also hinted at a future event at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena, which hosted the 2025 Champions League final.
“It can happen, yes,” he added. “I mean, it’s not something what we have on our plans for next year, but it can happen, definitely.”
For now the focus is on Frankfurt and Oktagon 94, which also pits “The Neanderthal” Frederic Vosgrone – who went viral for his unrelenting fight style and likeness to Paddy Pimblett – against Czech legend Karlos Vemola, with former UFC fighter and two-weight Oktagon champion Vémola coming out of retirement at 42 to give Vosgrone the biggest test of his career so far.
British fighter Marc Diakiese, an eight-year veteran in the UFC until 2024, meanwhile makes his promotional debut in a matchup built on bad blood with 22-year-old prospect Fedor Duric, with both men trading barbs in a tense press conference on Friday after an earlier face-off altercation.
With an emphasis on making their fight cards as entertaining for the fan as possible, Oktagon will also put on a half-time show fronted by multi-diamond and platinum DJ Robin Schulz.
The sizeable stage for this musical showpiece meant Oktagon couldn’t break the attendance record they set in 2024, but Neruda says he was happy to sacrifice a bit of history for the sake of the spectacle.
“To cross the record by a few hundred [people] would not be that big a deal,” he said.
“But to bring Robin Schulz on the huge stage and make a great show for fans is more important for us, and I think this is an even better message to the world. I’m 100 percent sure that this is the better option for everyone.”
