Former Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor Kendall
Grove will return to action after more than three years away
when he faces Michal
Materla in the KSW
78 main event.
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The Polish promotion recently announced the booking. Materla
defeated Grove via unanimous decision in their first fight at KSW
23 on June 8, 2013. KSW 78 takes place on Jan. 21 in Szczecin,
Poland and will also see Tomasz
Romanowski square off against Radoslaw
Paczuski in the evening’s welterweight co-headliner.
Grove, who won Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” hasn’t competed
since submitting Anthony
Ruiz in the first round of their bout at World Fighting
Championships 110 on Aug. 10, 2019. The 40-year-old Hawaiian is
best known for a 7-6 stint in the UFC from 2006 to 2011, but he
also had a nine-bout tenure in Bellator MMA and faced Materla and
Mamed
Khalidov under the KSW banner. “Da Spyder” owns a 24-18 career
mark, with notable wins over the likes of Joey Beltan, Derek
Brunson, Ikuhisa
Minowa, Joe Riggs,
Evan
Tanner, Alan
Belcher and Ed Herman.
Materla has been more active than his opponent in recent years. He
fought twice in 2022, earning a first-round TKO win over Jason
Radcliffe at KSW 66 before suffering a first-round KO defeat to
Mariusz
Pudzianowski at KSW 70. Materla holds the record for longest
middleweight championship reign in KSW history and is 31-9 over the
course of a professional career that began in 2003.