It’s been a long time coming, but MMA fans will finally see Losene Keita enter the Octagon for the first time at UFC Paris this Saturday.
Long-touted as one of the top fighters competing outside of the UFC, former two-division Oktagon MMA titleholder Keita will compete for the first time this year at UFC Paris when he meets former Bellator star Patricio Pitbull.
The Pitbull fight is the kind of high-profile matchup that you typically don’t see for fighters making their UFC debuts, but the hype around Keita means that he’s expected to make an immediate impact on the promotion’s featherweight division.
Following a brief three-fight amateur career that included a pair of first-round finishes, Keita turned pro in late 2019 and managed to put together a 3-0 record before the year was over.
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A run of four-straight knockouts in the first round was capped off by Keita’s Oktagon MMA debut against Karol Ryšavý in 2021. The following year, “Black Panther” defeated Ronald Paradeiser to win the promotion’s interim lightweight belt before he knocked out longtime MMA veteran Ivan Buchinger in just three minutes to become the undisputed 155 lbs. champion.
A move down to featherweight in 2023 saw Keita also claim that division’s interim belt, but unfortunately a title unification bout with Mate Sanikidze ended in just over a minute when Keita broke his foot and was unable to continue.
The 27-year-old rebounded from the first (and so far only) loss of his MMA career when he returned to win the Oktagon MMA featherweight belt in late 2023, which kicked off a five-fight win streak that most recently saw Keita achieve double-champ status when he reclaimed the lightweight title in a rematch with Paradeiser.
Keita draws one of the most decorated names in MMA history for his promotional debut at UFC Paris, as Pitbull is a 45-fight veteran that carved out his impressive legacy as a two-division champion in Bellator MMA.
Now 38 years old, Pitbull came up short in his own UFC debut against former interim featherweight titleholder Yair Rodriguez at UFC 314 but rebounded with unanimous decision win against Dan Ige in July.
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Although he may be the most highly-touted of the group, Keita is far from the only major name making his promotional debut at UFC Paris. Axel Sola, Robert Ruchala, Ante Delija, and Harry Hardwick are all also set to step into the Octagon for the first time, with Hardwick coming in on extremely short notice to replace Fares Ziam for a matchup with Kauê Fernandes.
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