KSW 121: the two men Phil De Fries beat now fight each other

The main event of KSW 121 exists because Phil De Fries is not on it, and the two men who replaced him in the story have something in common. De Fries beat both of them.

He stopped Štefan Vojčák with punches in the third round at KSW 111 last October. He submitted Marcin Wojcik inside the opening round at KSW 117 in April. De Fries came off this card on September 13, Wójcik was moved up to face Vojčák, and now the heavyweight division's two most recent De Fries casualties settle it between themselves at Home Credit Arena in Liberec on Saturday night.

Photo: MMA Flashback / CC BY-SA 4.0

There is a version of this where you shrug at a replacement main event and move on. I would not. KSW's heavyweight picture has been one man's property for the better part of a decade, and this is the first time in a while that two of the people stuck behind him get to fight each other with something in front of them.

Vojčák is the favorite and he is the one who lasted longer

Štefan Vojčák (5-2 in our records, four of the five wins by knockout or TKO) goes in at -210, with Wójcik at +161. That is the market saying the Slovak is a touch better than a four-to-six proposition.

The case is straightforward enough. Vojčák submitted Arkadiusz Wrzosek in the second round at KSW 119 in June, which was his first finish by anything other than punches and a genuinely new thing to see from him. Before that he took Michal Martínek out with strikes in the second at KSW 99 and knocked out Ricardo Prasel in the second at KSW 94. He is 5-2 and both losses are to men who were better than him on the night rather than styles that break him: Darko Stosic in 2023, De Fries last October.

The De Fries fight is the one to weigh, because it is the only shared reference point either man has. Vojčák went into the third round with him before the stoppage. Wójcik did not get out of the first.

Wójcik has the better win on his sheet

Which is why +161 feels slightly cheap to me rather than obviously right.

Marcin Wójcik is 9-6 in our data with four knockouts and three submissions, and last December he outpointed Augusto Sakai over three rounds at KSW 113. Sakai is a former UFC heavyweight who has shared a cage with Alistair Overeem, Andrei Arlovski and Tai Tuivasa, and beating him on the cards is a better result than anything on Vojčák's ledger. Sakai lost to De Fries too, in 2024, because everybody in this division has.

The problem is what is around it. Seven fights since November 2023 and the pattern barely holds still: knockout of Henrique da Silva, stopped by Rafal Haratyk in a round, a first-round rear-naked choke of Damian Piwowarczyk, stopped by Haratyk again, then the Chuzhigaev knockout and the Sakai decision back to back, then De Fries. One winning streak in three years and it was two fights long.

Two heavyweights who both get finished, one of whom is better than the other at the thing that finishes them. That is a coherent case for the favorite and a reason the underdog price is not silly.

The co-main has the same trick in it

Michal Michalski against Radosław Paczuski at middleweight is the second fight on this card between two men who lost to the same opponent.

Piotr Kuberski stopped Michalski in the first round at KSW 118 in May. Kuberski head-kicked Paczuski unconscious in the third at KSW 109 last August. Michalski had won four in a row before Kuberski got to him, two of those by first-round punches. Paczuski is 8-3 with six knockouts and had also won three straight, over Kleber Silva, Laid Zerhouni and Kacper Karski, the last of those by leg kicks.

Both men hit hard, both men have been knocked out, and both men are coming off the same educational experience. This should not require three rounds.

The rest of the main card

Lukasz Charzewski (-187) against Josef Stummer (+143) at featherweight is the card's quiet good fight. Stummer has won three in a row, all in KSW, the most recent a decision over Michal Domin in February. Charzewski has won his last two since Leo Brichta knocked him out in a round in February 2025.

Muslim Tulshaev (-243) against Kacper Koziorzebski (+177) at welterweight is a stylistic collision worth the price of the stream. Tulshaev finished four consecutive opponents by TKO between February 2024 and September 2025 before Adrian Bartosinski stopped him with elbows in the third last December. Koziorzebski has won four straight and every single one of them went to the cards, including a majority decision over Artur Szczepaniak in February and a split over Matúš Juráček in 2024. Finisher against a man who has not been finished since 2023.

Leo Brichta and Kacper Formela is priced as close to even as anything on the card, -120 against -110, and both come in off losses. Tagir Machmudov faces Szymon Kasprzynski at welterweight after his original opponent changed on September 13, the same day the main event did.

Three prelims open the night: Hanka Gelnarova against Małgorzata Popowicz at bantamweight, Adrian Dudek against Borys Dzikowski at middleweight, and Dominik Zadora against Samuel Bily at welterweight.

Prediction: Vojčák by knockout, but if Wójcik is still standing in the third I would not want the favorite's position. Michalski by first-round knockout. Stummer by decision. Koziorzebski, who does not get finished, by decision.

Prelims start at 7 p.m. CEST, main card at 9. Full card, country-by-country start times and where it streams are at how to watch KSW 121, picks go in at the pick'em, and results land live on the event page.