Duel's Founder Never Fought — Here's What Actually Happened at Duel: Arena 1
Two days before Duel: Arena 1, the promotion announced founder Ossi "Monarch" Ketola against a 41kg opponent named Patrick Holden. The bout never made the card, never happened, and no result was ever published. Here's the correction — and the fights that did take place in Orlando on Saturday night.
What we said, and what actually happened
On the evening of August 27, Duel Arena's official X account posted a fight announcement: founder Ossi "Monarch" Ketola, listed at 92kg, against a Patrick Holden, listed at 41kg, billed as a twelve-round middleweight boxing bout at Duel: Arena 1. The post called it "one of the most anticipated thrillers" on the card and claimed analysts were "struggling to choose the favourite."
The announcement as posted — 92kg vs. 41kg, called a "middleweight boxing bout." This fight never happened. Screenshot via @duelarenax on X.
None of it materialized. When the official card for Duel: Arena 1 was finalized, Ketola–Holden was not on it. It does not appear in the fight card published by the promotion, in the card listings run by MMA Mania, Yahoo Sports or DraftKings Network, or on Tapology's or Sherdog's event pages. It does not appear in any live results log from the night. The promotion, which posted result graphics for its actual bouts within minutes of each one ending, never posted a Ketola result at all. Patrick Holden — for whom we could never find a boxing record, an athletic background, or any media presence outside that one announcement — never surfaced again.
A handful of low-quality aggregator pages have since published claims that the exhibition went ahead and that Ketola lost by decision. We can't find a primary source behind any of them, no scorecards or official protocol exist, and the outlets they cite carry no such report. Treat those pages as unreliable.
Why the numbers should have been the tell
The announcement's own figures were the giveaway, and we under-called it the first time. Boxing's middleweight division tops out at 72.5kg (160lbs). Ketola, at a listed 92kg, is already well clear of that on his own. Holden's listed 41kg (about 90lbs) sits nowhere near any recognized adult weight class in any combat sport. The 51kg gap between them is heavier than Holden's entire listed body weight. No commission approves that, and the Florida commission's permit for the event covered a card that never included it.
What the announcement actually was: a promotional hook, posted at peak build-up, engineered to be screenshotted and argued about in the two days when attention on the event was highest. It worked — including on us. The real function of the "12 rounds" and "middleweight" framing was not to describe a contest but to make an obvious joke read just enough like a booking that people would share it either way.
The fight that actually headlined the card
The main event went ahead without its original participant. Dillon Danis, booked opposite Mike Perry for close to three weeks of promotion, pulled out roughly two days before the event; the withdrawal was announced at Thursday's pre-fight press conference with no official reason given, and Perry was blunt about it from the podium. Brandon Jenkins, a former UFC and MVP MMA veteran, took the fight on about 48 hours' notice and flew in to replace him.
The promo banner for the bout that actually took place: Mike Perry vs. Brandon Jenkins, catchweight MMA. Posted by @duelarenax on fight night.
It lasted one round. Jenkins dislocated Perry's shoulder and the fight was waved off — a TKO win for the short-notice replacement and, by some distance, the most genuinely unexpected thing on a card that had spent three weeks selling manufactured surprises.
Duel: Arena 1 — full results
Saturday, August 29, 2026, Kia Center, Orlando. Streamed free on YouTube, Kick and X rather than pay-per-view. Full promotion background and every future card lives on our Duel: Arena hub.
- Brandon Jenkins def. Mike Perry — TKO, round 1 (catchweight MMA, main event)
- Paul "Gypsy Crusader" Miller def. Ben "King" Azoulay — split decision, 30-27, 30-27, 28-29 (heavyweight kickboxing, co-main)
- Jimi Manuwa def. Chase Sherman — TKO, round 2 (heavyweight boxing)
- Blake Anthony def. Nate Morrow — unanimous decision, 30-27, 29-28, 30-27 (145lbs MMA)
- Phil Rowe def. Javanis Ross — unanimous decision (175lbs boxing)
- Alex Nicholson def. Brad Taylor — TKO, round 1 (heavyweight MMA)
- Ryan Pownall def. Patrick "Velveteen Dream" Clark Jr. — disqualification, round 2 (200lbs boxing)
- Jack Grady def. Wade Stokan — TKO, round 1 (165lbs boxing)
- AJ Cunningham def. Joe Penafiel — KO, round 1 (155lbs MMA)
- Thomas Phillips def. Shane King — unanimous decision, 29-28, 30-27, 29-28 (120lbs boxing)
Ossi Ketola does not appear on this card, because he did not fight. The permanent home for these results, the promotion itself and future cards is our Duel: Arena hub.
What this tells you about the brand
Nothing here is subtle, and it isn't meant to be. Announcing a phantom bout with an impossible weight differential, two days out, on the promotion's own channel, is a marketing device — the same instinct behind booking Mike Tyson and Lil Pump as guest blackjack dealers, or hiring a withdrawn opponent's mother as a ring card girl, which the promotion also did on Saturday. Attention first, everything else a distant second.
The practical takeaway for anyone reading Duel's announcements: the promotion's own posts are not a reliable record of what is going to happen, and in this case were not a record of anything at all. Wait for the sanctioned card. That applies to us as much as anyone — we ran the original version of this piece off a single X post, and the post turned out to be the entire story.
Ketola's actual track record, which runs through poker and crypto rather than combat sports, is covered in our founder profile. He founded CSGOEmpire at 18 off roughly an €11,000 stake, built it into a nine-figure skin-betting operation, and has spent the past two years in televised heads-up poker sessions with pots reaching into the millions. As of this writing he has never had a boxing match.