Winnipeg MMA fighter waiting for call from UFC

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This article was published 22/12/2021 (1574 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You never want to leave a decision to the judges.

Just ask Mariusz Ksiazkiewicz.

“As cliche as that is, it’s the truth,” the MMA fighter from Winnipeg told the Free Press.

“You can’t do that because you’re putting your career on the line. Especially in the UFC, the difference between a win and a loss is how much food you put on the table. Go out there, do your job, and make sure there’s no controversy. You’ve got to finish.”

Ksiazkiewicz learned that the hard way on Nov. 10, 2020. Ksiazkiewicz was in Las Vegas to square off against Brazilian Mário Sousa on Dana White’s Contender Series — a show that rewards impressive performances with UFC contracts. Sousa got the decision, but many people, including White, the president of the UFC, thought the judges got it wrong.

“I’ve probably watched it 100 times. What stings for me is, what did they see that they gave him the nod? You look at the stats, I outstruck him two rounds to one. If you look at the ground control, I was in control, it specifically says, 12 out of 15 minutes,” said Ksiazkiewicz.

“To me, it was like, what did they see? Was it based on the last 10 seconds of the fight? MMA judges are very strange… They can literally change the path of someone’s career.”

They certainly did for Ksiazkiewicz, as the UFC told him the only way they’d consider giving him another look is if he went out and won a fight. The only problem was it was nearly impossible for Ksiazkiewicz to get a match lined up. This past year saw Ksiazkiewicz have nine fights get cancelled — for a wide range of reasons — before finally having one work out: a meeting with Sherwood Park, Alta.’s Graham Park in the main event of Unified MMA 42 for the promotion’s inaugural super-middleweight (195 pounds) title. Unified is Canada’s biggest MMA organization.

The two entered the octagon last Friday at the River Cree Casino in Enoch, Alta., and Ksiazkiewicz made sure the judge’s score cards didn’t play a role on the night. Eighty five seconds into the bout, Ksiazkiewicz knocked out Park with a left hook to the jaw.

The 32-year-old Ksiazkiewicz, now 9-1, left without a scratch and more importantly, with his first championship belt as a pro. The loss dropped Park’s record to 8-3. Park has never had a fight go into the second round and eight of Ksiazkiewicz’s nine victories have been finishes.

“All 10 of his fights were the same. He’d rush his opponent towards the fence, throw one punch, clinch you on the fence and try to take you down and then he’d try to knock you out with ground and pound,” Ksiazkiewicz said.

“… You know what I think helped was in all of my interviews, I was chirping him a little bit. I was saying how he doesn’t know how to fight five rounds and how he’s scared to fight as he’s always in a rush to finish. I feel like I got to his head and when we got in there, he changed his fighting style and that’s when I knew. ‘Oh he’s not rushing me? OK, we have an opportunity here to finish it on our feet because he’s never done this before. He can’t be comfortable.'”

Ksiazkiewicz, who trains out of the Winnipeg Academy of Mixed Martial Arts and typically fights at 185 pounds, considers it the biggest win of his career. Park is one of the top fighters in the country at 205 pounds.

“Both of us are in our primes and at the pinnacle of our weight classes in Canada and we got to meet in the middle and slug it out. I was extremely excited for the matchup because this is the type of fight you usually don’t see happen in Canada,” Ksiazkiewicz said.

“A lot of guys who try to get to the UFC take the easy way and then they get exposed when they get there. So, this was the rare occasion where the two best guys wanted to fight each other so I was extremely excited for that opportunity.”

Ksiazkiewicz brought the title belt to a kid’s class at WAMMA on Wednesday to help inspire the next generation of fighters. He hopes it’s the first of many pieces of hardware that he can bring back to his gym. The next step for that to happen is to get an offer from the UFC. There’s only been four Winnipeggers (Joe Doerksen, Krzysztof Soszynski, Roland Delorme and Brad Katona) to have ever fought under the UFC’s bright lights and Ksiazkiewicz is anxious to become the fifth. If last week’s knockout isn’t enough to get him over the hump, Ksiazkiewicz will have Unified’s next show on March 4 circled on his calendar.”I was predicting a knockout in the second round but I’m glad I got it in the first,” he said.

“I really made a statement and I’m just waiting for the UFC to give me that call now.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @TaylorAllen31