Croatian knockout artist Roberto Soldic arrived in ONE Championship as the hottest free agent in mixed martial arts. Fans worldwide expected a bombardment of destructive knockouts to quickly develop. But he didn’t have a fairytale start.
“Robocop” built a terrifying rep across his European MMA stint. He’d scored 17 knockouts in 20 wins, becoming a two-weight KSW Champion.
He even had two emphatic battles with UFC Middleweight Champion Dricus Du Plessis under the KSW banner. In their second clash, he knocked out Du Plessis in the third round to win the promotion’s welterweight crown. Since then, he’s been the last man to defeat the UFC kingpin.
He went on to score five more knockouts in Europe’s largest MMA promotion before bringing his talents into ONE Championship.
His debut came in December 2022 at ONE on Prime Video 5 when he was set to lock up with Murad Ramazanov. The world watched on, expecting another riveting performance. But that wasn’t to be.
Soldic rushed in, and in the scramble, he ate a groin strike that brought his debut to an unceremonious end.
In his return at ONE Fight Night 10 in Denver, Colorado, he faced former ONE Welterweight MMA World Champion Zebaztian Kadestam. The duo brawled from the first bell as the contest lived up to the hype.
But it was Kadestam who found success more frequently than Soldic. And in the second frame, Soldic succumbed to the Swede’s barrage of punches to shock the world with the knockout loss.
Upon reflection, the Croatian crusher admits he was far too intent on finding the chins of both Ramazanov and Kadestam, which led to his downfall.
“The first fight and the fight after that, I was in a little bit of a rush. I tried to finish. That time, I was a little bit too comfortable,” he said.
“But I don’t want to talk about it much, it’s behind me. I just want to keep forward now and try to learn always, you know.”
It was far from the ideal start that Soldic desired. But that was all about to change at ONE 171: Qatar this past February. He was paired up with fellow finisher Dagi Arslanaliev, where one punch in one round changed his entire fortune.
Soldic uncorked a tremendous right hand that put his Turkish foe to sleep before he even hit the ground. He was ecstatic to finally enter ONE’s winner’s column.
“I knew he was going to start very aggressively. I knew he was going to pressure me a lot and all that,” he said.
“But I just waited for my moment, I didn’t want to rush like before. It’s always about learning, you know.”
