Fighter In-Depth: Losene Keita
Losene Keita is a 24-year-old born out of Konakry, Conakry, Guinea. The young man lived in Guinea until he was 11-years-old. He moved to Kortrijk, Belgium with his family and is still there living there today. As a kid, Keita wasn’t doing good in school, constantly getting into fights. Even on the streets, he got into a lot of trouble…
The police were constantly at his door. All the things Keita was doing winded up landing him in prison for four months. After getting out he still was getting into fights on the street due to his reputation. In what was ruining his life, his street trouble also saved his life in a way. Someone he knew saw the talent Keita had and ended up inviting him to a MMA gym. He grew up with no knowledge of MMA and instead played basketball and soccer growing up. After some thought and consideration, Keita agreed and after the first session, he was hooked.
After two months of training in MMA Keita had his first fight. He had over eight amateur fights and turned pro in 2019 because nobody else would fight him as an amateur. At this current time according to tapology, there are only eight fighters fighting out of Guinea. Only two have a winning record – that being Keita who is 7-0 and Mohamed Camara who sits at 3-1.
Keita has been fighting lately for the Czech Republic promotion Oktagon. Before that, he was fighting for World Fighting League for three fights. WFL is a promotion out of the Netherlands. It’s owned/founded by MMA/Kickboxing/Bellator staple Melvin Manhoef. In their last event on August 15th, Keita was the main event and won the welterweight championship.
“Black Panther” has looked quite exceptional in his career. His biggest knock is the level of competition he’s been fighting. The combined record of his opponents is 26-45, but one of the guys he beat had a record of 27-42. In his last fight, he did fight a guy with a 9-3 record, so Oktagon is giving him better opposition.
Keita is a fighter that’s shown a bit of everything offensively and defensively while just having a few concerns. He swings with some real stopping power in his hands, but can swing wild looking for power strikes instead of fighting technical. When he gets takedowns, the top control is evident but is too comfortable riding out a position. Keita hardly ever looks to improve his position and won’t throw enough ground and pound. He’s not at all bad on the mat as he can just do a lot more.
On the flip side, Keita is a solid wrestler. He lets guys come forward into them and that’s when he changes levels for easy takedowns. Keita does slip under punches and comes underneath on his opponents very nicely to secure takedowns. He does have good power and when he puts his hands together he’s even more lethal. Keita has shown glimpses of good boxing using the jab and going body-head. When he’s not sitting down on every one of his punches, he’s a better fighter and that showed last fight.
Keita is still a young man with a lot of potential and so much more to prove. You can’t tell how good he is yet until he fights better guys. Right now for Oktagon, he will fight better guys over time. In the future, if Oktagon doesn’t get him to a big promotion; two promotions that are realistic for him to join are Ares FC and Brave CF.
The power, athleticism, and well-rounded ability are enough to keep a close eye on the “Black Panther”.
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