For the second time in a few months, the KSW is setting its bags in France this Friday, December 20, with an exceptional evening of fights at Paris La Défense Arena (8:30 p.m. on RMC Sport 1), which will be concluded by the 100% French clash between Salahdine Parnasse and Wilson Varela, for the -70kg belt of the Polish organization. An organization born twenty years ago in the bar of a Warsaw hotel. And which has since grown much, much.
The biggest Franco-French clash in history from a sporting point of view, at the end of a particularly attractive card, all in the largest hall in Europe, and therefore with a probable record attendance at the key. Legalized for almost five years, popularized by the arrival of the UFC in Paris, the mondiovision performances of Ciryl Gane or the gibberish of Cédric Doumbè, French MMA is preparing to take a new step this Friday evening at the Paris La Defense Arena.
The den of Racing, transformed in the summer into the garden of Léon Marchand’s Olympic exploits, will become in the space of a few hours a temple of combat sports. This time, no American superorganization at the helm, nor a showman headlining, but two particularly talented and hardworking French fighters, Salahdine Parnasse and Wilson Varela, who will compete for the -70kg belt of a promotion Polish, the KSW. The number 1 MMA organization in Europe. The one who doesn’t close any doors.
>>> Experience the Parnasse-Varela clash and the KSW 101 with RMC Sport offers
From TV… to reality
Behind this acronym KSW, three words that are difficult to decipher for anyone (that is to say almost everyone) who does not know Polish: Martial Arts Confrontationfor “martial arts confrontation” in French. MMA, then. MMA with Warsaw style, which has gradually conquered the Old Continent… from a bar-restaurant.
Back to the early 2000s. At that time, Martin Lewandowski was still the promotion manager from the Marriott hotel in the Polish capital. Among his responsibilities: managing the entertainment of the “Champions sports bar”, integrated into the establishment. Lewandowski (who is not related to Robert but who will nevertheless try to make the footballer’s wife fight) broadcasts F1 Grand Prix and football matches on the screens, and organizes special SuperBowl evenings. Very classic, in short. Except that the promotion managerwho has been practicing martial arts himself for several years, developed a passion for Pride FC, the legendary Japanese MMA organization.
Having carte blanche, he begins to broadcast an event at Champions. Then two, then three… Marriott customers appreciate it, others come specifically from the other side of Warsaw. What, you will have understood, made an idea germinate in Lewandowski’s skull: why settle for a TV broadcast? Why not move the Champions tables a little further apart, install a makeshift ring in the middle of the bar, and bring in some fighters to liven up the evening?
Martin Lewandowski discusses this project with Maciej Kawulski, a business partner he met a few years earlier, himself a combat sports fan. The two men shake hands. The KSW was born. “At the time, MMA had a very, very bad reputation in Poland,” Martin Lewandowski told Fighters Only in 2019. “It was said that gangsters were involved in this sport, that it was like watching a fight of dogs (…) Everything pushed me to flee, rather than stay, build and develop the sport here.”
Nevertheless, on February 27, 2004, the first event saw the light of day, in a format from another time: a tournament pitting eight fighters (under 93kg), all Polish, on a single evening. Winner by submission in the quarter, by decision in the half, then by TKO in the final, Lukasz Jurkowski is the winner of the first tournament. Not many people attended his coronation, since according to the registers, the attendance was – at best – 300 people. But everyone got their money’s worth.
On October 7, Lewandowski and Kawulski did it again with a KSW II. Then a KSW III in January 2005, and a KSW IV in September 2005. Always with a tournament, at Champions, on the ground floor of the Warsaw Marriott. The difference is that the public is growing, and the roster is already international, with American fighters, a Croatian, or even a Brazilian. Mirko “Cro Crop” Filipovic, Pride figure and future UFC fighter, is even in the audience.
“Pudzian”, the perfect shot
Confident of himself, Martin Lewandowski left his job at the Marriott in 2006 to embark full-time, and still with Maciej Kawulski, on the KSW adventure. “We started investing our own money,” Lewandowski told MMA Fighting in 2017. “I realized that if I dedicated that time (as a hotel employee), multiplied by two, I could earn a lot more money. “money than working at the Marriott.”
The jackpot is not immediate, but the Polsat channel has expressed its interest in broadcasting the meetings, and provides the cash necessary for the development of the organization. The KSW does not think too big, it is gradually making a name for itself. KSW V, in June 2006, was the first to be held outside the Champions, and KSW VI (October 2006) was the first to take place at Halle Torwar, a hall with around 5,000 seats in Warsaw.
The shift really took place three years later, with the signing of Mariusz Pudzianowski, a local icon, a mixture of Brock Lesnar – for wrestling fans – and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mountain of muscles, five times winner of the “strongest man in the world” competition between 2002 and 2008, former prisoner and former singer, “Pudzian” is thrown into the ring (which will become a circular cage in 2014) of the KSW 12 on December 11, 2009, against poor Marcin Najman. The fight only lasts 43 seconds, enough time for Pudzianowski to martyr his opponent, but the shot is perfect: 5.7 million Poles are in front of their television at 11:50 p.m. to watch the fight. A tidal wave.
What’s next? Four events per year on average, a first KSW outside Poland in October 2015 (at the Wembley Arena in London), and a moment of grace in May 2017, when the organization offered the National Stadium in Warsaw for the KSW 39 : Colosseum. 57,776 spectators gathered in the stands, for what was at that time the second largest attendance in the history of MMA. Figures that even the UFC, to this day, has never managed to achieve. This time it’s there, KSW is playing in the big leagues.
“Respected” fighters, and above all well paid
The recipe for success has several ingredients. And the Polish people’s passion for fighting does not explain everything. To establish itself over the long term, to retain its audience and conquer new markets, including France, the KSW has succeeded in attracting – despite a still very heterogeneous roster – talents from all over Europe, and even elsewhere. Several UFC stars cut their teeth there: we think of Jan Blachowicz, Mateusz Gamrot, Alexander Gustafsson and of course the current -84kg champion, the South African Dricus Du Plessis. On the French side, Oumar Sy also fought there three times, before signing with Dana White.
Others had this opportunity, but preferred to remain under the Polish flag. The most emblematic case being that of Salahdine Parnasse. Free to engage wherever he wanted after the first KSW in France in April 2024, and courted by the most powerful leagues, the “Superprodigy” has returned. Quite simply because the Polish organization, and this is one of its strengths, pays its athletes well. Even very, very good. “You have to know that when you are happy somewhere, there is no point in leaving. (…) What tipped the scales was the financial aspect, we were respected, we been heard”, confirms to RMC Sport Stéphane “Atch” Chaufourier, the mentor and manager of Parnasse.
A sum of 500,000 euros per fight was mentioned behind the scenes. Real? “Salah’s salary fluctuates between 2nd and 4th place for a UFC fighter, which means we were well off,” smiles “Atch”. Before finally saying a little more: “We can approach a million euros between two fights, and two and a half fights”.
Episode 268: MMA: Salahdine Parnasse remains at KSW, the reasons for his choice
Obviously, not all KSW fighters are in the same boat as Parnasse, holder of two belts (-66kg and -70kg) and international figure of the organization. But to use Atch’s words, almost everyone says they are “respected” when it comes to receiving their scholarship. It must be said that KSW has formed several lucrative partnerships in recent years (Viaplay, XTB, etc.), which have allowed it to accelerate the pace (now one KSW per month since 2022) and to have solid financial arguments to make. .
Doping and neo-Nazism
Enough to also alleviate some reluctance. Because the KSW, despite its growth, despite its money, despite the promotion of its athletes with careful artistic direction (perfectly rehearsed shows, and one of the most charismatic speakers on the MMA planet), does not escape to certain criticisms.
The main criticism often concerns doping. If in France, high-level MMA practitioners regularly have visitors when they wake up, Poland is more of the Wild West in the field. “We travel a lot to Poland with Salah, and there is no ban there,” Atch confided a few months ago. “That means that every Salah fight, we are convinced that we are facing a doped fighter.” We regularly raise our eyebrows at the very (too) impressive physique of an athlete in the cage.
The appearance of its fighters has also caused KSW other controversies in the past. In 2012, before KSW 18, the organization – popular with certain groups of Eastern European hooligans – was forced to remove the Finn Niko Puhakka, who was supposed to fight for the vacant -70kg belt. Problem: the latter had exhibited a neo-Nazi slogan, tattooed on his chest, during a previous fight. “The KSW federation has never been and will never be an institution promoting political, religious or social beliefs,” the KSW then justified itself in a press release. “We are a sports organization that chooses our fighters solely on the basis of their athletic performance. Our goal is to compare the skills, not the opinions of the athletes.” So it wasn’t always better before.
