Ivan Horvat Becomes the New European Champion
Saturday the 16th of July in the beautiful city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina saw an evening of top-level elite muaythai at the Grand Hall of the Croatian house of Prince Stjepan Kosača. The night featured the best fighters from Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the surrounding countries. The family of the late world champion Branko Cikatić attended the match as guests.
The Headlining bout saw local hero Marin Čarapina face Croatian fighter Ivan Horvat for the vacant WMC European title 86,17kg. The fight was well matched with both fighters going toe to toe but Marin succumbed to an injury in round 3 and was unable to proceed, resulting in Ivan becoming the new champion.
The WMC took some time earlier today to catch up with Ivan and discuss his victory. Ivan stated that “Becoming the new WMC European champion feels great, this is something I have worked for since the time I trained and fought in the UK, up till now, when I have my own muay thai club in Osijek, Croatia (Bad Shadow). I went into the fight with a strategy – to disable his right leg with calf kicks, so all my training was focused on that. The plan was to hide these kicks with jabs. After that, the plan was to throw punches and elbows once his leg is weak, which was a success – This caused my opponent to stop the fight. With the help of my team from my club — Bad Shadow Muay Thai (Osijek), I trained with this specific strategy in mind, and I am really happy it worked out so well”.
The WMC would like to congratulate Ivan on the win and also the promoters for putting on another world-class event.
