oktagon
Oktagon was born from a series of previous combat sports events organized mainly in Italy since 1989, the most important of which was the Kickboxingmania series, which was the first to receive extensive coverage on Italian and international television and is considered the "father" of Oktagon. The name of the event comes from the fact that the first tournament featured eight athletes from different disciplines.
The first event took place in 1996 in Milan and featured a free fight tournament, a primitive version of MMA using boxing gloves: the tournament was won by the British Lee Hasdell who defeated the American Scott Dobbs, a student of Dan Inosanto, the Italian athlete Paolo Di Clemente and in the final, the Dutch Andre Mannaart.
Held at the Forum di Assago for over twenty years, in front of 16,000 spectators. The event was broadcast on television, with various networks airing it: Italia 1, Italia 2, Dahlia TV, Rai Sport 1, DMAX and Spike.
The disciplines featured are predominantly kickboxing under K-1 or FightCode rules and muay thai, but MMA also found a place from the very beginning.
Some of the planet's most important combat sports athletes took part in the Oktagon events, such as Rob Kaman, Andre Mannaart, Paolo Biotti, Ramon Dekkers, André Panza, Giorgio Petrosyan, Andy Souwer, Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong, Sak Kaoponlek, Artur Kyshenko, Pedro Rizzo, Valentijn Overeem, Dzhabar Askerov, Cosmo Alexandre, Karapet Karapetyan, Rico Verhoeven, Artëm Levin, Sahak Parparyan, Davit Kiria, Robin Van Roosmalen, Murthel Groenhart, Armen Petrosyan, Pavel Zhuravlev, Paul Daley.
Among the 14,000 spectators in attendance were Giorgio Armani, Domenico Dolce, Donatella Versace, Chris Penn, Don Wilson, Randi Ingerman, Giorgio Pasotti, Guido Meda, Michelle Hunziker, Mario Balotelli.
