November 15, 2020 - On Saturday night, Roberto Soldic made his debut in the middle category of KSW and achieved the 18th victory in his 21st professional fight by a knockout in the first round against Polish veteran Michal Materla.
Index.hr reports that the Croatian fighter seemed to feel remorse after beating the local legend. In the ring after the victory, he said that he would not celebrate and that he had great respect for his opponent, which he repeated in an interview for inthecage.pl.
"I did not celebrate after the victory, I respect him very much, and I thank him for allowing me to fight against the great local legend," said Soldic.
"I feel strong, I didn't have to lose a lot of weight, I had more fitness and I hit more, like in training. I believe in my hands, fitness, team, and sponsors. This is my life, I'm moving on, regardless of victories or defeats, I will always fight," the 25-year-old from Vitez continued.
The journalist asked him why he did not finish the fight on the ground when he had the opportunity and when Materla invited him to do so. Soldic preferred to wait for the Pole to get up before finishing him off standing up.
"I wasn't afraid, but why would I grapple when I could finish him standing up? I didn't want to get into that situation. I'm a complete MMA fighter; I'm not afraid of jiujitsu or wrestling," Roberto 'Robocop' explained, then spoke about his plans, considering that he is still the current champion of KSW in welterweight. With this victory, he showed that he really has a place in the upper, middle category.
"I may return to the lower category to defend the title, but we will see what the future holds. I need to talk to my manager and team. I will rest a bit, but I have training again from Monday," said Soldic and thanked Materla in Polish and said he was a real fighter.
Ivan Erslan also competed for the KSW 56 title fight, though he was unlucky against Tomasz Narkun. However, Filip Pejic made sure that the Croatian team did not take home just one victory. It took Pejic just 12 seconds to win against Sebastian Rajewski at the KSW 56 event.
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