No Love Lost This Valentine’s Day: As We Love MMA 85 Hits Munich

When We Love MMA 85 rolls into Munich’s Kleine Olympiahalle on 14 February, the most interesting collision might not be fists and shins, but experience versus ambition. Straubing’s kickboxing veteran Katharina Eckstein – a woman with more ring miles than most people have hot dinners – is finally trading ropes for mesh and making her MMA cage debut in “Germany’s toughest MMA league.”

The former German amateur champion in both boxing and kickboxing is not exactly dipping a toe in the shallow end here. With more than 60 kickboxing fights on her ledger, Eckstein arrives in Munich as one of the most seasoned strikers in German combat sports. She’s spent years turning people into cautionary tales; now she wants to find out how that power and precision translate when the rules suddenly include takedowns, clinch work and a great deal more hugging than she’s used to.

For Eckstein, this first walk to the cage is more than a new challenge – it’s a career pivot. That debut at We Love MMA 85 marks a proper milestone, the point at which “kickboxing star” becomes “mixed martial artist” in ink rather than pencil.

A Straubing Hammer Meets a Hannover Upstart

Of course, every storyline needs a foil, and in this case it’s Elmas Özer, a hungry young prospect from the renowned Lee Gym Hannover. That’s not your average sweatbox in an industrial estate; it’s the sporting home of WE LOVE MMA double champion Daniel Makin and a conveyor belt for technically slick, tactically sharp fighters.

Özer arrives in Munich with the kind of ambition that can keep a person wide awake at night. She’s the up-and-comer looking to make her name by upsetting the established striker on a big show, in a big arena, in front of a big crowd. If Eckstein represents proven power, Özer is all about potential – that tantalising question of how good she might be when the lights are brightest.

It’s the classic recipe: veteran striker with an encyclopaedia of ring experience versus the rising prospect from a powerhouse gym. Someone’s story is getting a new chapter; someone else might be heading back to the drawing board.

Munich Gets Its Brawls’ Worth

Beyond the Eckstein–Özer showdown, We Love MMA 85 is bringing a full slate of local heroes, regional rivals and potential show-stealers to Munich’s Kleine Olympiahalle. The first wave of confirmed bouts already reads like a night with very few bathroom breaks.

Local gyms are all over the card like a bad rash – Elysium MMA Munich, Munich Top Team, and a smattering of travelling squads from Düsseldorf, Reilingen, Siegen and beyond. It’s the kind of matchmaking that guarantees at least one wild, career-defining scrap and one fight where two people with the same postcode settle something they probably started in sparring.

The Cage Takes a German Tour

For anyone who gets hooked – or just wants to follow the travelling circus – the WE LOVE MMA Season 2026 schedule turns Germany into one long road trip of knees, chokes and post-fight selfies. Munich is just the opening bell:

From Munich’s Kleine Olympiahalle to Berlin’s Uber Arena, it’s a grand tour of German arenas and German dialects, all unified by the sound of leather on jawbone.

How to Get in the Door (Without Selling a Kidney)

If you fancy seeing Eckstein’s first steps in the cage, or you just enjoy the sight of highly trained adults trying to separate each other from their senses in a controlled environment, tickets for upcoming events start at €20.00 (incl. advance booking fee).

You can grab them via www.welovemma.de, all major ticket outlets, or through the nationwide ticket hotline:

• Nationwide ticket hotline: 01806-570070
  • (€0.20 per call incl. VAT from landlines, max. €0.60 per call incl. VAT from mobile networks.)

On 14 February in Munich, chocolates and flowers might be traditional – but this year, We Love MMA 85 is offering something rather more memorable: a Straubing striker’s leap into the unknown, a hungry Hannover prospect, and a card full of fighters trying to make sure their name is the one people are still talking about on Monday.