Samir Mohamed vs Alexander Kozachenko - WKN World Title Historical event for Kickboxing when on Friday, October 22, 2004 Romania hosted the first ever in its history the bout for world title. Posted by WKN on Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Throwback Thursday brings us 12 years back, when the World Kickboxing Network (WKN) organizes the first in history of kickboxing, the bout for the world title on the territory of Romania.

The event that is written in kickboxing history books took its place on Friday, 22nd of October 2004 in the city of Braila. It was the tenth edition of Local Kombat, established by the world’s largest kickboxing federation, the WKN. The Eurosport network delivered the momentous happening throughout the continent.

The historical match was for the WKN super lightweight world title. France’s Samir Mohamed faced Alexander Kozachenko from Ukraine. It was the Frenchman’s one hundred fight. For the multiple champion of Ukraine, who was also the WAKO pro European title holder, it was the chance to take a revenge for the decision loss of their previous encounter. However it ended in just over a minute of the third round. Mohamed threw the left high kick that dropped Kozachenko to the canvas.

A considerable aspect is that none of the competitors has Romanian origin even though the bout took place on its territory. Indeed, back then kickboxing was a stranger for the country that later produced such names as Daniel Ghita, Ionut Iftimoaie, Andrei Stoica and Catalin Morosanu.

“We have built the Local Kombat branch with my friend Eduard Irimia. Kickboxing was completely unknown in Romania. Now their fighters are even more popular than football players,” WKN president Stephane Cabrera shared in 2014 bulletin.

“He [Eduard] is now one of the biggest European promoters who makes a SuperKombat show every month live on Eurosport, with a large and serious audience.”

Indeed, with over of 30 produced events the Local Kombat concept developed into the Super Kombat.

Super Kombat is one of today’s fighting championships, alongside the Glory World Series. Nevertheless, the trophy for grabs is still the prestigious WKN title belt.

The recent edition of Super Kombat broke European attendance record with the crowd of over 30.000 people. This was on August 10, 2016 when Ionut Iftimoaie defeated Loren Jorge in the WKN super-cruiserweight championship. Such happening is now also the part of kickboxing history.