OKTAGON 95 and BKFC 95 results: Narkun taps Škvor, Herring wins

Three cards, 31 bouts, 20 finishes, and the favorite won 23 of the 30 fights that had a line. On paper that is a chalk weekend. It did not feel like one, because two of the six underdogs who won did it in the fights people actually tuned in for, and the closest of my headline picks came by the narrowest margin a judging panel can give.

Saturday ran from Karlovy Vary and Rome in the afternoon to Newark after midnight, and the full order of events is on the calendar. I made my picks for all of it in the weekend preview, so the ledger comes with the verdicts.

OKTAGON 95: the old champion was not finished

Photo: Keres 40 / CC BY-SA 4.0

OKTAGON 95 lost its scheduled main event, Patrik Kincl against Dominik Humburger, which came off the card, so the light heavyweight fight between No. 2 Daniel Škvor and No. 6 Tomasz Narkun went out last. Škvor closed at -234. Narkun was +182, roughly a 35 percent chance by the consensus line, and he needed 2:29 of the first round to submit him.

I picked Škvor by TKO and wrote that the evidence agreed with the market. The evidence was four straight Škvor finishes (Antonio Zovak, Marc Doussis, Lucas Alsina and Patrick Vespaziani) against a 36-year-old who had dropped a decision to Alexander Poppeck at OKTAGON 86 in April. What the evidence left out is that 15 of Narkun's 21 wins coming in were submissions, and that Škvor's own losses include submissions against Dan Vinni and Will Fleury. Narkun is 22-7 now. Škvor is 11-5, and the No. 2 spot just got a lot less comfortable.

The bigger upset was further down. Flyweight No. 2 David Dvořák had been above -1100 early in the week and was still -742 at the first bell against No. 5 Aaron Aby (+458). Aby took a decision over three rounds. That line drifted toward Aby all week, which in hindsight was the market telling us something. Dvořák has now lost two straight, after a third-round TKO against Zhalgas Zhumagulov at OKTAGON 81 in December. Aby, who lost three in a row across 2024 and 2025, has won two straight.

• Timo Feucht (-216) stopped Zdeněk Polívka by TKO 13 seconds into the fight. I had him by decision. Right fighter, wrong sport, almost.
• Matúš Juráček (-187) put away Jozef Wittner by TKO at 3:17 of the third round in the middleweight co-main.
• Marco Novák knocked out Anatolij Baal at 0:57 of the second. Every other prelim in Karlovy Vary went the distance, and the favorite won all of them.

BKFC 95: Herring keeps the belt, barely

Photo: Team Herring / CC BY-SA 4.0

Champion against champion at the Prudential Center went all five two-minute rounds, and bantamweight champion Jamel Herring kept his belt by split decision over flyweight champion John Dodson. That is Herring's first title defense and his third BKFC win, all three over the full five rounds, and the first of them that one judge saw the other way.

The line had a strange week. Herring opened at -250, Dodson money pulled him in to -184 by Thursday, and then it swung back hard: Herring closed at -273, about 73 percent. My pick was Herring by decision, "closer than the opening line said." It was closer than the closing line said too. Dodson, who is 42 and had not fought since May 2025, takes his first loss in six BKFC fights (4-1-1) and still holds the flyweight belt. A rematch at 125 would be the obvious booking, except Herring would be the one moving.

The co-main went the way the -899 line said it would. Jimmie Rivera knocked out Brandon Meyer at 0:46 of the fourth round, his second straight win in Newark after a third-round TKO of Timmy Mason in the same building last October. I had Rivera by TKO, so I will take the half point.

• Cole Cameron was the weekend's second-longest shot to win. At +402 he knocked out Phil Caracappa (-607) at 1:44 of the first round. Caracappa has now been knocked out in the first round in each of his last two Newark appearances, and the -607 price looks a lot stranger this morning than it did on Saturday.
• Tony Soto (0:40 of the second), Santo Curatolo (0:37 of the second) and Dalvin Blair (1:22 of the first) all won by knockout as favorites. Seven of the ten bouts ended inside the distance.
• Mike Medrano (+167) took a split decision over Rob Emerson, and Dylan Pitt (+127) stopped Nicholas Saragosa at 0:52 of the first.
• Noah Getahoun and Dustin Bailey fought to a unanimous draw over three rounds, which is the one bare-knuckle result of the night nobody could have bet on with confidence.

Cage Warriors 211: Bellandi gets the comeback he was booked for

At the PalaPellicone in Rome, Dario Bellandi (-687) did exactly what a short-notice booking against Aldo Pereira was built for. Pereira, who replaced Renato Valente Alves this week, was stopped by TKO 13 seconds into the second round. Bellandi is 10-2 and back in the win column after Paddy McCorry stopped him in the first round at Cage Warriors 200 in February. Pereira has lost four straight. That is my cleanest hit of the weekend, Bellandi by TKO, and it was the easiest pick on any of the three cards.

Cage Warriors 211 was the most decisive card of the three: nine of eleven bouts ended early, and only one underdog won.

• Giuseppe Mastrogiacomo (-293) knocked out Alexis Tsarmantidis at 3:47 of the first. I said decision. He disagreed.
• Enrico Di Gangi submitted Tommy Brunning at 2:43 of the second, and Federico Rotoni, the biggest favorite of the weekend at -2636, submitted Andrei Gabura with eight seconds left in the first.
• Elez Guri (+229) was the card's lone upset, a unanimous decision over Gabriele Lionetti at flyweight.
• Angelo Coppola and Jonathan Rivera fought to a draw in an unpriced bantamweight prelim.

The ledger

Of my seven named picks across the three cards, I got the winner right in five and the method in two. The two I missed were Škvor and Dvořák, and Herring came within one judge of making it three. The pattern is not subtle. I trusted the shortest prices in Karlovy Vary, and the market had already been backing away from both of them all week.

BKFC is back next weekend in Clearwater with Reber vs Street. The question Newark leaves behind is simpler: if Herring and Dodson were that close over ten minutes, who wants to tell either of them the first one settled anything?