UFC Belgrade: Janicic Calls Out Bojkovic Before Debut
Nine Serbs are on Saturday's card at Belgrade Arena. At the press conference Milos Janicic turned on Marko Bojkovic, while Uros Medic signed the first posters with his face on them.
Before he sat down at the table in Belgrade Arena on Wednesday, Milos Janicic had already mailed Marko Bojkovic a parcel. He announced it himself, on social media.
“The full kit has arrived for my poor suffering brother. A UFC set, as promised, so he can feel what the UFC is like,” Janicic wrote ahead of the press conference.
At the conference, three days out from UFC Belgrade, he moved on to the question of a ticket.
“I don’t know whether Bojkovic bought a ticket. Will he be able to sit through it?” Janicic said.
Where the Bojkovic feud comes from
The needling started before the cameras were even switched on at the Arena. In that same post, Janicic went further than a joke about fight gear:
“We are here for my poor suffering brother Bojket, who is not much of a fighter, but is an even worse human being”
Bojkovic is not on the card, so he gets no answer inside the cage. What Janicic gets on Saturday is his first UFC fight, in front of a home crowd. His opponent is Frenchman Noa Guignon.
“It hardly gets better than this, a UFC debut in front of your own crowd,” Janicic said.
Which Serbs are fighting at UFC Belgrade?
Nine Serbian fighters are booked for August 1, on a card that runs 14 bouts deep:
- Uros Medic vs Daniel Rodriguez, main event, welterweight at 77 kilograms
- Aleksandar Rakic vs Marcin Tybura
- Dusko Todorovic vs Roberto Valentin
- Vlasto Cepo vs Gilbert Urbina
- Jovan Leka vs Max Gimenis
- Borislav Nikolic vs Marko Vologdin
- Nikolija Nina Milosevic vs Hayley Cowan
- Marina Spasic vs Stephanie Luciano
- Milos Janicic vs Noa Guignon
The card also carries Jan Blachowicz against Navajo Stirling, Ludovit Klein against Tofiq Musayev, Oban Elliott against Michael Oliveira, Denis Buzukja against Bogdan Grad and Mateusz Rebecki against Kyle Prepolec.
The number that gets the least attention in the build-up may be the sharpest one. Six of those nine fighters come out of a single gym, Car Dusan Silni in Novi Sad. Two thirds of the home contingent walks out of the same room, and that gym’s corner team works the Arena from the opening bout to the main event. Leka had his opponent changed late, Nikolic was added to the card as a short-notice replacement, so the running order kept moving after the first official announcements.
Medic headlines a card for the first time
Uros Medic arrived in Belgrade with his camp already behind him and with one experience he had never had before. After landing, he signed the first official UFC posters carrying his face.
“This is the first poster with my face on it. I am excited. This will definitely be framed and hung up. It is perfect, I am honored”
He tops a UFC card for the first time in his career, against American Daniel Rodriguez. Part of the camp was done in California.
“Camp went great. I prepared in California with Beneil Dariush,” Medic told Sport klub.
The rest was done in Novi Sad, at Car Dusan Silni, under coach Nemanja Milosevic, with Aleksandar Rakic and Milos Janicic as training partners. Three men who spent months hitting each other in the same gym now appear on the same card, in different slots of the same night.
“We are going for an attractive fight and an attractive finish,” Medic said.
This week belonged to posters and microphones. The cage opens on Saturday, August 1 at Belgrade Arena, with 14 fights scheduled. If Medic lands the finish he is promising, that poster stops being the only thing he signed in this building.
