After walking out to the cage, dressed as Darth Maul, twirling a lightsaber around, and producing a stunning knockout before munching down a pack of scrumptious Jaffa Cakes, Akonne Wanliss couldn’t have done much more to earn a sponsorship deal from his favourite sweet treat company.
With an electric skill set and unrivalled will to win, ‘The Jedi’ works his heart out at the Renegade Gym in Birmingham, in the company of UFC champion, Leon Edwards.
And at Oktagon MMA 48 at the AO Arena in Manchester, he’ll look to make all his sacrifices worthwhile, when he collides with Jakub Bahnik in an eagerly-anticipated lightweight bout.
With the prospect of making a statement at the forefront of his mind, Wanliss is preparing to put on a showstopping performance. And he wants Jaffa Cakes along for the ride.
In an exclusive interview with Sporf, he laughed: “If you guys love Jaffa Cakes, go to one of my Instagram posts and comment Jaffa Cakes underneath. I need them to follow me on Instagram because they follow me on Twitter already. Let’s get them following me so they can see the celebration after the fight.”
Possessing a fantastic arsenal of slick punches and lightning kicks, with a colourful personality to match, it made perfect sense to give Wanliss a much-deserved platform on Oktagon Challenge.
The assistant coach of Team England has been making waves on the show, teaming up with Brad Pickett, to showcase his talent for go-karting.
He beamed: “I’m telling you now, you don’t have to call me Lewis Hamilton anymore. Call me Max Verstappen, cause I’m always winning. It was good fun. I’m quite partial to a bit of go-karting. I like to go every now and then. But there’s not a track near me anymore because I’ve moved to the middle of nowhere. So I’m gonna have to build my own go-karting track.”
Akonne Wanliss has been terrororising team Ireland
While the Oktagon star has showcased an impressive level of coaching prowess, he’s still a fighter deep down, and when someone triggers his primal instinct, he’s ready to pounce.
In the next episode of the show, the Birmingham martial artist will square off with Denis Frimpong, who’s become a real thorn in the side of the English lads.
Wanliss asserted: “I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. It’s crazy that we both share the same management. It’s funny — everything that you see on TV is him hyping up, but behind the cameras, he went up to my manager and said, ‘Oh, I’m never gonna fight Akonne. He’s too big’. So that’s the reality.”
“I’ll fight anyone. I’ll smoke him. Give me some free money. It’s a very easy fight. But he knows he will never win. He even came up to me after, and I said, ‘There’s zero chance you’ll win’. I said, ‘I’ll give you a puncher’s chance. I’ll give you 10%. There’s a nine out of ten chance that I’ll win’.
“He said, ‘No, no, no. You can’t do that’. So I said, ‘What do you think’? He was like, ‘Six out of ten’. So, he still thinks he would lose. If you guys want to see that fight, if you want me to give me some easy money, then I’ll take out Denis Frimpong; I know he’s been p***ing off a lot of you guys.”
In the first episode of the show, Wanliss engaged in a fiery war-of-words with Aaron McDonald, which nearly escalated to blows. Even Armand Herczeg wants a piece of The Jedi. At this point, the charismatic striker might have to take on the entire country single-handedly.
But there’s one man he loves far too much to ever get in the cage with.
He said: “I could just take out the whole Irish team. I love Paddy Holohan, though. So, yeh, I’ll leave Paddy alone. He might take my ankles off.”
Featured Image Credit: Oktagon MMA
