What do a cemetery, an army barracks, the doors of Prague nightclubs and a hospital ICU have in common? They all play a part in the stories of the fighters on the Karlovy Vary card. You’ll also find a date that ties two opponents together by fate, and a Mexican who fights more often than most people get a haircut. On 17 October, OKTAGON returns to the Mattoni Arena. Here are the best fun facts from the OKTAGON 95 card.

THE GRAVEDIGGER WHO STARTED AT THE CHESSBOARD

David “Undertaker” Dvořák (22-7) has one of the most colourful life stories in the entire organisation. As a kid, he went to chess camps and sat down at the chessboard every single day. He found his way to MMA by chance: the building where he trained chess also started hosting combat sports classes. He earned his nickname doing odd jobs at a cemetery, digging graves in temperatures as low as minus twenty degrees and once spending three full days on a single grave. In 2015, during a study stay in the USA, he worked as a lifeguard and saved the life of a five-year-old girl. In the cage he is just as unique: he is the only flyweight in OKTAGON history to choke out an opponent.

FATEFUL 3 MARCH

Daniel Škvor (11-4) doesn’t have far to travel to Karlovy Vary. He grew up in Cheb, where at sixteen he walked into a small Muay Thai club for the first time. After his very first session, he gave up tennis and basketball for good. Before he made it to the world kickboxing elite, he made a living as a bouncer at Prague nightclubs. On 3 March 2018 in Rotterdam, he became the first Czech to compete in the prestigious GLORY organisation.

On the same day, more than a thousand kilometres away in Łódź, Poland, his Saturday opponent Tomasz “Giraffe” Narkun (21-7) submitted Polish legend Mamed Khalidov with a triangle choke and ended his eight-year unbeaten run. Nine months later, he beat him again. He has won fifteen fights by submission, while most fighters on the card don’t even have fifteen wins in total. His fastest finish came in just 16 seconds. But Škvor can surprise on the ground too: he holds the fastest submission in the history of OKTAGON’s light heavyweight division.

THE INSPEKTOR FROM THE TRAITORS AND THE CORPORAL WITH A 4:20 ALARM

When Dominik Humburger (12-3) turned pro in May 2021, Patrik “Inspektor” Kincl (30-12) already had 32 professional fights under his belt. In Karlovy Vary he steps into his 44th bout, which makes him the most experienced fighter on the card. He is the only fighter in OKTAGON history to win title fights in all three ways: by KO, by submission and on points. Outside the cage, he even put himself to the test on the Czech version of the reality show The Traitors.

Humburger is an army corporal whose alarm clock went off at 4:20 for years. He is the only fighter in the organisation’s history to earn a Performance of the Night bonus in each of his first two fights. He returns to the Mattoni Arena, where he made his debut in April 2025 with a win over Samuel Krištofič. Kincl beat the very same opponent in his own OKTAGON debut. For this fight, Humburger prepared with Karlos Vémola and Makhmud Muradov among others, men who have shared the cage with Kincl themselves.

Humburger and Kincl have actually tested each other before, in sparring. “I remember sparring with him two years ago. He took me down and I swear on anything, I never got back up. If he’d wanted to, I’d still be asleep there now. I did absolutely nothing,” Humburger recalls. He was quick to add, though, that two years is a long time in a fighter’s career.

FROM HOSPITAL BED BACK TO THE CAGE

Several men on the Karlovy Vary card have already beaten a far tougher opponent than anyone they will ever meet in the cage. Aaron Aby, who faces David Dvořák, was born with cystic fibrosis. As a boy, he read in a school textbook that people with his condition used to live barely to eighteen. Doctors told his parents their son would probably never see thirty. Aby proved them wrong. He came through Welsh youth football, then swapped the pitch for the cage and became a professional fighter. At OKTAGON, he was even the very first man to fight for the flyweight title. Then, with his career already underway, came another blow: stage-three cancer that had spread into his abdomen. Aaron Aby beat it, returned to fighting and will be 36 years old on fight night.

Zdeněk “Gameover” Polívka (10-8) talks about his health problems with self-irony. “Like an idiot, I kept training through pneumonia, so I gave myself pericarditis,” he admitted. Then herniated discs began pressing on his nerves and spinal cord until his left arm was half paralysed. He had immediate surgery on his cervical spine, and titanium plates now hold his neck together.

Debutant Viktor Červinský (5-3) has shown his courage too. In the middle of a fight, his shoulder popped out. He put it back in himself, finished the fight and won.

Robin Fošum (2-1-1) ended up in intensive care with Covid, and doctors gave him only a minimal chance of survival. He lost as much as 25 kilos. Then a herniated disc in his neck weakened his right arm so badly that he couldn’t lift more than two kilos. On top of that, he tore a biceps tendon. He was told he would never fight again. Yet on Saturday he steps into the cage under Stand and Bang rules against Tomáš Klabík (1-0), who has proven his toughness in his own way. The reigning Czech bare-knuckle boxing champion found out about his title fight less than two weeks in advance, as a replacement for Josef Hála. He went down three times in two rounds, yet got up every time and stopped the favoured Jindřich Byrtus in the third round. He switched to bare fists for a purely practical reason: reportedly, he was “quite fat” and bare-knuckle boxing didn’t demand as much cardio.

YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW THIS

The Hradec Králové-based All Sports Academy is sending a trio of teammates to Karlovy Vary: Patrik Kincl, David Dvořák and Václav Štěpán. When Kincl made his pro debut in March 2007, Štěpán was just four years old.
Marco “La Roca” Elpidio (25-13-2), the organisation’s only Mexican fighter, squeezed in six fights last year, with just 14 days between the last two. In Karlovy Vary, he will contest his 41st professional bout.
Marco Novák (7-3) has 85 Muay Thai fights behind him. Word has it he only really starts enjoying himself in the cage once he’s losing.
Patrik Pikeš once paid for his training by working at McDonald’s. Today he is a personal trainer. His opponent Rakhim Iliskhanov makes his living outside the cage as a model.
Unbeaten Václav Štěpán (5-0) lost just one of his fifteen amateur fights.

Karlovy Vary is about to welcome the yellow-and-black colossus once again. OKTAGON 95 kicks off on Saturday 17 October at the Mattoni Arena. Secure your seat in the stands and soak up the atmosphere first-hand. Get your tickets via the link below.

SEZNAM SE: TOHLE JE ANTHONY SALAMONE, KEITŮV FAVORIT NA VÝHRU

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