Vidovdan and Torches: UFC Belgrade Seen From the Stands

Marina Spasic stepped into the cage at 4:14 p.m., and Belgrade Arena was already close to full. That single detail tells you more about UFC Belgrade than any result sheet does. Prelims usually play out to half empty seats, with the building filling up an hour before the main card. This crowd was seated before the first bell.

The live blog opened at 4:08 p.m. and closed at 9:46 p.m. Fourteen fights fit between those two points, roughly five and a half hours of sitting in the arena.

The walkout songs were a fight of their own

What carried from the stands was the sound system. Uros Medic walked out to “Vidovdan,” and the building sang it back to him. Vlasto Cepo came out draped in a flag that was half Slovak and half Serbian, to Bijelo Dugme’s “Djurdjevdan.”

Jovan Leka picked “Tamo daleko,” and after his win the whole arena chanted his name. Borislav Nikolic entered to Danica Crnogorcevic’s “Sini jarko sunce sa Kosova.” Four fighters, four songs, and not one of them was standard UFC walkout fare.

How did the crowd receive Denis Buzukja?

The sharpest moment of the night was not a knockout. Denis Buzukja, an American of Albanian descent, walked in carrying an Albanian flag, having already flashed the double headed eagle sign at the weigh in. Whistles met him first, then chants of “Kosovo is Serbia” and “Serbia, Kosovo.”

The chanting carried on after the fight had started, which is unusual. Arena crowds normally go quiet on the first real exchange. His opponent Bogdan Grad got applause and ovations instead, and finished the job by submission in round two.

Thirty seconds, then torches

Medic began his walk at around 9:18 p.m., the main event lasted thirty seconds, and his win over Daniel Rodriguez went into the blog at 9:26 p.m. Torches appeared in the stands right after, with the building chanting his first and last name. Torches had also been lit earlier, during the prelims.

He took the microphone inside the cage and could barely put a sentence together. He had come back to Belgrade after nine years away.

I just want to cry, I just want to cry.

He said it to a full house, minutes after finishing a fight in less time than a commercial break.

Who sat cageside

The front row, right against the fence, held:

• Crvena zvezda basketball players Ognjen Dobric and Nikola Djurisic
• former UFC champion Alex Pereira
• Brando Peric
• internet personality Balkan Dad

Boban Marjanovic ran into Pereira in the arena corridors and posed for a photo with him. A banner addressed to Donald Trump also went up in the crowd.

What the numbers say

Of the 14 fights on the card, 12 ended by stoppage, knockout or submission, a point Michael Bisping made on the broadcast. Only two reached the judges, and both went unanimously, 30-27 across all three cards: Borislav Nikolic and Aleksandar Rakic.

Rakic ended a run of four straight defeats and picked up his first UFC win in five years. He climbed the cage fence to celebrate with the fans, then took the microphone and lifted the building again.

No official attendance figure was released in any of the reports we followed. Kurir put the number at 20,000 people inside the arena.

The schedule held up

In our earlier piece, “UFC Belgrade: first bell at 4 p.m., Medic closes the night,” we wrote about the running order and who walks when. Announced schedules rarely land this cleanly. The first bell came inside its window, Medic did close the night, and he did it in thirty seconds rather than five rounds.

The next move belongs to the promotion. With the microphone in hand, Medic called out Leon Edwards and told him to stop hiding. No date for that fight has been announced.

What stays from this night is not the results column. It is the fact that the building was full at 4:14 p.m. and, five and a half hours later, was still singing other people’s walkout songs as if they were its own.