Martin Lewandowski had been the manager of the
Hotel Marriott in Warsaw when he met Maciej Kawulski in 2002. Kawulski was organizing one of the biggest sports expos in Poland at that time, and as both businessmen come from martial arts backgrounds, they quickly found a common subject. Eighteen months later the first KSW show was born. The promotion is famed for its four and eight-man tournaments, which until KSW X - Dekalog took place over the period of one night, but since KSW XI they are split, with the tournament final taking place on the next event. KSW XV is the first event without a new tournament, only with extra fights and finals from previous tournaments. Different from other bigger promotions such as the
UFC, KSW adopted the strategy of having events that are less frequent but bigger, focusing on creating big shows with stacked cards and with great spectacle. In 2017,
KSW 39: Colosseum beat the record for the largest live attendance to a MMA event in Europe, and second-largest in history with 57,776 fans, only after the
Pride Shockwave in 2002 and ahead of
UFC 193. Several fighters who have been successful in KSW have signed on to more well known promotions such as the
UFC. KSW has its own fight team, the
KSW Team, which consists of some of the promotion's elite fighters, such as
Mamed Khalidov,
Jan Błachowicz, Krzysztof Kulak, Łukasz Jurkowski or Antoni Chmielewski. KSW co-operates with many other promotions in Europe by exchanging fighters, for example WFC and The Cage. KSW runs the majority of its shows live on a variety of TV networks (
Polsat Sport,
Polsat Sport Extra) throughout Europe. Since KSW XI, the promotion runs its shows live on nationally available at private
free-to-air television network
Polsat.
Viaplay era On November 22, 2021, KSW announced a long-term partnership with streaming platform Viaplay. Contract includes increasing number of KSW events to 12 per year and exclusive rights to Viaplay to broadcast KSW events on its platform for the Polish, Nordic, Scandinavian, Dutch and English markets.
Cooperation with XTB In October 2022, it was announced that as part of the extension of cooperation with
XTB - one of the largest Polish fintechs offering its own investment platform, a new agreement was concluded, in which XTB will become the title sponsor of the KSW gala in 2023. The agreement is concluded for the entire year 2023 and will be valid for ten out of twelve planned galas, of which six of these events will be called XTB KSW. In other cases, XTB will be a strategic sponsor, just like in 2022 - at galas in
Łódź,
Toruń,
Radom and
Warsaw.
Hall of Fame On May 10, 2023, the KSW federation announced the introduction of the Hall of Fame, intended to recognize players every year, as well as other people who have made a unique contribution to the history of the organization. The first honored player inducted into the Hall of Fame was former KSW commentator and the first KSW tournament champion, Łukasz "Juras" Jurkowski [33] . The official ceremony of Jurkowski's introduction to the Hall of Fame took place during the XTB KSW 83: Colosseum 2 gala.
Special XTB KSW Epic gala On February 24, 2024, a special XTB KSW Epic gala took place, focusing on organizing fights in formulas other than just MMA. During the fight of the evening of this event, Mamed Chalidow and Tomasz Adamek crossed gloves in the boxing formula. The KSW
ring announcer is Waldemar Kasta, a former rapper born in
Wrocław. == Roster ==