Aron ‘Iron Fist’ Jahnsen has issued some words of warning for his opponent Sam Omidi (4-9-2) as the former MMA star prepares to make his professional boxing debut on February 3. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to choke you out, I’m going to knock you out,” says the Oslo fighter ahead of their middleweight clash at the SØR Amfi in Arendal.
 
Having made a name for himself on the European MMA circuit, including a 2011 fight against Conor McGregor, Jahnsen has decided to transition from mixed martial arts to professional boxing. Swapping the octagon for the squared circle so that he is able to compete for the first time in his home country.
 
“All my fights have been away from home in Sweden, Denmark, England and Japan,” reveals Jahnsen. “It’s not legal to do MMA in Norway so when pro boxing was legalized, I thought to myself, yes, finally I can fight on Norwegian soil!”


 
Jahnsen, who is trained by Norwegian MMA legend Joachim ‘Hellboy’ Hansen and former national amateur boxing champion Remy Damlien, says he is confident of making a successful start to his boxing career and then plans to see how far he can progress.
 
“I’m excited to see what happens,” he says. “I know I can beat this guy Omidi and a lot of other guys at my weight class. It will be interesting to see how well my style is suited to boxing. My goal is to climb up the ranks and see how far I can reach.
 
“The only difficult thing I can see is that in boxing when you knock a guy down you have to let them get back up again, but in MMA, you only need one clean knock down and then can continue to hit them to make sure you get the win.”
 
Jahnsen’s highest profile match-up came in 2011 when he was drafted in as a late replacement to fight current UFC superstar Conor McGregor in Amman, Jordan.
 
“I haven’t got the happiest memories from that fight,” reflects Jahnsen, who suffered a first-round TKO loss to ‘The Notorious’. “Conor and his team made me drop 10kg in 24 hours. We had agreed a catch weight, but when they saw me at 73kg, they changed their minds and said we agreed 70kg not 73kg, so I had to drop another 3kg to make weight.
 
“Then the fight went like it went. I wasn’t functioning properly because of the weight loss, and when it came to the finish, I didn’t get any warnings. If you watch the fight you can see his punches didn’t even hit my face, only my guard, but the ref still stopped it. Screw Conor and his team. With more time to prepare he would have been choked out and forgotten!”
 
Jahnsen makes his professional boxing debut against Sam Omidi as part of an action-packed Nordic Fight Night event at the SØR Amfi in Arendal featuring hometown hero Kai Robin Havnaa alongside fellow Norwegian professionals Tim-Robin Lihaug, Kevin Melhus, Simen Nysaether, Hadi Srour and undefaeted German heavyweight Albon Pervizaj.
 
Tickets are available online via www.ticketmaster.no or by calling (+47) 22 82 81 97.