Hamburg, Germany — Slovakian lightweight Tomasz Ciganik earned a split decision victory over Ahmad Halimson at Oktagon 73 on Saturday, notching his fifth straight win in the process.
The Hamburg-based card was another big night for Oktagon, which has become the preeminent promotion in European MMA. Ciganik (6-2) has fought for Cage Warriors and a number of other regional shows, and is now 2-1 under the Oktagon MMA banner.
“I feel very good. It was a close fight, I was expecting it would be a finish until the second round,” Ciganik told Cageside Press following the fight. After the second, mind you, he expected the final frame to be a war.
When it came time to hear from the judges, Ciganik believed he had done enough. Yet at the same time, he was well aware that it was a close fight.
“I believed myself that I won. I jumped on the cage after the fight; I was happy. But always it’s like, I know this was a close fight. So in my head was like, I can lose. But I believed that I won.”
At weigh-ins on Friday, Halimson, a German born in Afghanistan, had given Ciganik a good shove. That said, it didn’t create any real bad blood. Instead, the Slovak fighter kept his cool.
“No, no [there was no bad blood] but I was like, I know that Afghan mentality is very hard, so I wanted to show him that I’m the harder man,” explained Ciganik. “On morning weigh-ins, I saw on video that he wanted to push me first time.” Yet when Ciganik didn’t lean in, the opportunity wasn’t there. Instead, Halimson got physical in the ceremonial weigh-in that afternoon.
“I told myself, I was like calm, but I saw in him that he don’t control his emotions. That’s it. I control my emotions, I did nothing. I just saw him, that he didn’t control his emotions,” stated Ciganik.
“This sport is hard but you need to be calm,” he continued, noting that had he punched Halimson, “okay, yeah maybe we fight on weigh-ins. But I was calm. I was just looking into his eyes, and I wanted a hard fight, and he pushed me. So I don’t think it was better for me in the fight, because he is hard, but I just saw in him that he don’t know [how] control his emotions. And I was calm in this situation, and I was happy for this.”
As for his next fight, Ciganik doesn’t have a name in mind, and without a finish at Oktagon 73, didn’t feel it was appropriate to call anyone out. He does, however, have a card in mind, with Oktagon returning to his native Slovakia for a show in Bratislava this October.
Watch our full interview with Oktagon 73’s Tomas Ciganik above.
