Former featherweight champion Salahdine Parnasse will return at KSW 61 next month, when he takes on Croatia’s Filip Pejic.
Promotion officials announced the news in a press release Monday.
Parnasse (14-1-1) has long been one of the most promising featherweight prospects outside the UFC. However, the French standout stumbled for the first time in his last outing, suffering a knockout loss at the hands of Daniel Torres. That cost him the promotion’s featherweight belt.
With Parnasse no doubt eying a route back to Torres and the 145lb title, the journey will start with Pejic (15-4-2). “Nitro” briefly competed in the UFC in 2016, losing his lone fight inside the octagon. After a handful of fights for Final Fight Championship, he joined KSW in 2019, posting a 2-2 record to date. Most recently, he pulled off an explosive 12-second knockout of Sebastian Rajewski last November.
KSW 61 is expected to take place at the Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland on June 5. The event will be headlined by heavyweight/world’s strongest man Mariusz Pudzianowski, who will be looking for his third straight win when he takes on Łukasz Jurkowski.
Fans will be back in attendance at KSW 61 for the first time since 2019, with the Ergo Arena at 50% capacity for the event.
The following bouts have been reported for the card thus far:
Mariusz Pudzianowski vs. Łukasz Jurkowski
Salahdine Parnasse vs. Filip Pejić
Tomasz Romanowski vs. Patrik Kincl
Michał Kita vs. Jay Silva
Roman Szymański vs. Donovan Desmae
Przemysław Mysiala vs. Ivan Erslan
Damian Stasiak vs. Andrey Lezhnev
Jakub Kamieniarz vs. Adam Niedźwiedź
