Christian Jungwirth was denied a professional career as a footballer. As an MMA fighter, however, the former protégé of Thomas Tuchel is a star. In Stuttgart, he makes the arena go wild
VfB Stuttgart is not in action this weekend due to the international break. Nevertheless, thousands of sports fans made the pilgrimage to Bad Cannstatt on Saturday evening.
The reason: a former VfB goalkeeper rocked the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in front of 15,000 spectators.
Christian Jungwirth, who played under current Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel as a youth player at Stuttgart, won his fight against Robert Pukac at the Oktagon 55 MMA event, sending the time-honored hall into raptures
Spurred on by chants of “Jungwirth, Jungwirth”, the 37-year-old literally rolled over the Slovakian and also won the second duel between the opponents.
Jungwirth once played in a youth team with future national team players Serdar Tasci and Andreas Beck, but due to numerous injuries it was not enough for a career as a professional footballer.
However, contact with his two former teammates has not been broken off. “The excitement is building, not just for me, but for many people here in the stadium,” said Andi Beck before the fight and predicted: “I think it’s going to be pretty wild.”
He and the many fans were not to be disappointed. Jungwirth prevailed in a high-class fight over five rounds on points.
Jungwirth: “I’m overwhelmed “
Jungwirth had a cut over his left eye afterwards, but that didn’t dampen his joy at all. “I’m doing incredibly well,” he said into the ARD microphone. “I’m overwhelmed by my feelings. That was amazing. I think that was the coolest atmosphere that MMA Germany has ever experienced.”
The fact that he didn’t make it to the pros as a footballer didn’t matter to him that evening
