A Bosnian fighting out of Germany, unbeaten lightweight prospect Fedor Duric returns to action at Oktagon 69 on April 5, looking to improve to 8-0 in his second fight with the surging European promotion.
Oktagon MMA’s strong presence in Germany, where they’ve previously packed arenas and stadiums, is a bonus for the young fighter, still just 20 years old. His opponent this time out, Predrag Bogdanović, has over twice the experience in terms of fights as Duric himself, despite turning pro just two years earlier.
“The experience is a big factor for him, because he fought so many guys, but not too much guys I’ve known of, except [Losene] Keita and Will Brooks,” Duric told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview ahead of the fight. “It will be a big advantage for him, but for me, I’m young, hungry, and I just want to get the win.”
While Duric didn’t want to give away too much in terms of holes he might have seen in Bogdanović’s game, he’s done his homework. “From what I’ve seen from him, he doesn’t like fighting in the standup, he’s more of a grappling fighter. That will be my advantage in the fight.”
Despite starting out his combat sports career as a kickboxer, Fedor Duric is very comfortable on the mat — a well rounded mixed martial artist. With his perfect record through seven fights and with youth on his side, many are looking at him as a bright prospect at 155lbs. With that comes added pressure, but Duric seems to be handling it well.
“Of course it’s pressure, because people expect a lot from me. For me personally, I don’t care. I know what I’m capable of, I know what I can do, I know how hard I’ve been training for this and I’m just happy to fight,” he said, asked whether the added pressure was a concern this early into his run. “And that’s it.”
As for how the youngster got into MMA, it all goes back to getting into some fights as a kid, and not being comfortable in those situations. “My uncle said to me ‘you’re like a sissy, you need to go into kickboxing training’ because he knew a few coaches. I started doing kickboxing until I was 12 years old, then at 12 I moved to Germany.”
“I also knew of MMA, but in Bosnia MMA was not a thing that people knew of. In Germany, I started doing MMA, came here also to Frankfurt, 2021, my manager Niels recognized the talent that I had,” Duric continued. “He’s been supporting me since day one. That’s how I got into MMA.”
Getting back to the fight with Predrag Bogdanović, Duric made a pretty simple prediction. “I see it as a pure domination. We will do everything that we trained for, and God bless. Let’s go.”
Watch our full interview with Oktagon 69’s Fedor Duric above.
