Christian Eckerlin laughs modestly when asked if he has contributed to Brighton’s success. Last season the 39-year-old MMA fighter was brought in by the Premier League club to help with their training for set-pieces. Eckerlin was a professional footballer in Germany before transitioning to MMA, and he says he taught Brighton’s players “wrestling, head control, hip control, and how to push back against opponents”. Days before this interview with Eckerlin took place, Brighton had moved up to third in the Premier League after beating champions Arsenal 3-0.
Eckerlin is quick to play down the impact of his advice, but admits his training “opened doors” for the Brighton players. “The Premier League is more physical, more aggressive, and they don’t know how to use their body,” Eckerlin told BBC Sport. “Brighton sent me videos of how they defend, and they did nothing with their hips and arms.” He explained that he taught them first in the weightlifting room, then on the pitch, and that it worked. “This is what I did, I opened doors for them,” he said.
The connection to Brighton came through manager Fabian Hurzeler, whom Eckerlin knows through a friend who used to play with Hurzeler in Munich. It was Hurzeler who invited Eckerlin over to Brighton, where he spent three days with the players. Eckerlin says all the players did well learning the MMA techniques he taught them, but Danny Welbeck, James Milner and Lewis Dunk “had the feeling for it”.
Eckerlin’s own football career ran from 2005 to 2009. He played for SV Darmstadt in the third tier of German football at the peak of his career, having grown up in Erbach, a small town outside Frankfurt. Football was his first passion, and during his youth career he played against future stars such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mats Hummels. He left football at the age of 20 after a disagreement with his coaches. “I got a little bit crazy and partied with friends. But my popularity went down with the coaches,” he said. “They said ‘you cannot do this’. But I was young, nobody was on my side to say ‘calm down and do your thing’. So I said ‘OK, I’m going’.” Eckerlin played at left-back but admits he “wasn’t a technical guy”, before joking he was more of a fighter on the pitch.
As a youngster, Eckerlin always wanted to play for Eintracht Frankfurt, the team he supports, but believed his dream was over when he left the sport. MMA, and specifically European promotion Oktagon, helped make his dream of performing there come true. In 2024, he beat fellow German Christian Jungwirth at Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park in front of nearly 60,000 fans in the most-attended MMA event of the year. On Saturday, Eckerlin returns to the stadium also known as the Waldstadion for a second time to face the Czech Republic’s David Kozma at Oktagon 94, with nearly 60,000 expected once again.
“It was my first dream, when I was in the Waldstadion when I was six or seven with my uncle. It was the dream for me to play there but I thought the fire went out,” says Eckerlin. “I cannot tell you in words what this means to me. The biggest thing in my career. And now for the second time… crazy.” He added: “I’m at the end of my career, I’m 39, so this is maybe my last fight. There’s no better way to stop fighting in my backyard, you know.”
Eckerlin says he helped grow his following after switching to MMA via his YouTube channel, even though football remains the most popular sport in Germany. He describes the fanfare in Frankfurt as “crazy”, with fans always wanting to take pictures with him, and adds that he is equally as well known in large cities such as Berlin and Hamburg. With nearly 60,000 fans expected again for his fight on Saturday, the show is likely to be the most well-attended MMA event of the year once again.
Eckerlin, who has won 18 of his 26 professional fights, describes Saturday’s bout as probably the final fight of his career. Before it, he took a moment to reflect on the impact he has had on MMA in Germany. “I love this sport, and I push the sport more than everybody or anybody before in this country,” he says. “After my career, when I look back, I think then I will realise, what I do for the sport, or for MMA in Germany. But now I’m fully focused, and there’s no time to think about the things in the past.”