- In an event called "The War 3," a team fight descended into chaos after just 17 seconds.
- Five men faced five men in another of Poland's strange, unconventional fight promotions.
- One fighter was hit a dozen times before a referee was eventually able to intervene.
An unconscious MMA fighter was punched in the head 12 times in a controversial team vs. team match at an event in Poland.
Though Poland brought a legitimate combat sports promotion called KSW to the fore, which has helped develop Jan Blachowicz, Alexander Gustafsson, and Mariusz Pudzianowski into stars, it has also this year put novelty events into the spotlight.
One of these novelties involves teams of fighters being thrown into a cage until one team's numbers has depleted so rapidly that it becomes nothing short of carnage, with bodies strewn across the canvas.
A promotion called The War is renowned for this, and returned to central European screens this month for the third installment of its violent saga.
A team of masked fighters squared off against a team dressed in more traditional gear, with the traditional combatants asserting their authority early in the five against five ruckus.
One of the major issues with this kind of contest is that there are only three referees managing 10 athletes throwing all kinds of strikes until multiple people are defenseless on the ground.
And just 17 seconds into The War 3's team event, more referees were needed as one fighter got knocked unconscious. The aggressor did not relent and continued to wail blows onto his skull with nobody around to stop him.
One of the three refs eventually darted across the cage to pull the aggressor off of the motionless fighter on the floor.
The fallen fighter was hit with at least 12 unnecessary shots before he was given the assistance he should have had seconds before.
Watch the feral fight here:
—Sebastian (@Sebinho93x) November 26, 2021
Poland is notorious for this kind of thing
Make no mistake, The War is weird even for a sport that pits fighters against one another until only one is standing.
But Poland is notorious for this kind of thing. Just last week an MMA fighter got disqualified from a novelty match in a miniature cage because he kept biting his opponent.
The flagrant fouling took place at the Fame MMA 12 event inside Gdansk's Ergo Arena in Poland, during an 11-bout card on Saturday, November 20.
The biter was duly disqualified from the match, and handed a loss.
Last month, the IMMAF, a governing body for the sport, slammed a Polish promoter for hosting a male vs. female fight, which it described as "intentionally scandalous," in a statement sent to Insider at the time.
And, earlier in the year, a female team fight attracted attention — not all of it positive — for a three vs. three bout that, like The War 3, was wild, weird, and disorderly.