A Middleweight Title Eliminator isn't the only fight to be excited for at the Karate Combat: Season 4 Premiere, which airs worldwide on Saturday, May 14th.
Now, there's an entire fight card worth watching.
Our co-main event features cancer nurse Lazar Kukulicic, who will swap his scrubs for his Karate Combat gi, and face British lightweight prospect Mitchell Thorpe.
Read more about the entire Fight Card, and learn about each of our KCS4 Event 1 fighters below.
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American standout Ross ‘Turbo’ Levine throws down with Spanish rival Igor de Castañeda in the headline bout at the Karate Combat Season 4 Premiere, Saturday, May 14th. The winner will earn a shot at the Karate Combat World Middleweight Championship later this year.
Levine and de Castañeda have been on collision course since Levine entered the Karate Combat ranks. Their rivalry, which began with an exchange of comments on social media, has grown into an intense antagonism which will now be settled in this high-stakes encounter.
With a world middleweight title shot on the line and both fighters being proven fight-finishers with a string of stoppages to their credit, their main event showdown has all the ingredients to be short-lived and explosive.
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Two young lightweight prospects face off in the chief support slot when qualified cancer nurse Lazar Kukulicic steps out of his scrubs and into his gi to do battle with tough British battler Mitchell Thorpe.
Kukulicic, an oncologist in his native Montenegro, and Thorpe, who has stated an intention to be “the Michael Bisping of Karate Combat”, both made successful debuts for the organization in last year’s Karate Combat: Season 3.
Having impressed with their performances and marked themselves out as future contender material, the pair will now face off to determine which of them takes a step forward towards lightweight title contention.
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Pitbull Brothers protege Sthefanie Oliveira enters The Pit, Karate Combat’s trademark fighting platform, to make her promotional debut against Mexican veteran Fabiola ‘La Parkita’ Esquivel, whose spectacular head-kick finish of Ana Villanueva went viral and was shortlisted for an award in 2021’s Karate Combat Fan Awards.
A one-time ballet dancer turned full-contact martial artist, Oliveira - who trains under MMA champions Patricky and Patricio Fereire at the Pitbull Brothers gym in Natal, Brazil - earned her nickname ‘The Shamaness’ due to her intense interest in spirituality and participation in ayahuasca ceremonies.
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Opening the four-fight card will be a lightweight bout between Tommy Azouz and Artur Gasanov. Tommy - a former French national team member whose brother Kevin also fights for Karate Combat - is coming off a win in Karate Combat: Season 3 while Gasanov - who often trains in Dagestan with Karate Combat’s Myrza-Bek Tebuev - is making his debut for the organization.
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Featuring Georges St-Pierre and Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson in sensei roles, Karate Combat: Season 4 features four events airing at two-week intervals, beginning with Levine vs de Castañeda on Saturday, May 14 and culminating in a live finale airing from a world famous location outside Orlando, Florida.