Keith Krikorian is putting his featherweight title on the line against Ashley Williams in the main event superfight for Polaris 32 on June 28th, 2025. It’s an excellent addition to the card, as the two men are among the very best grapplers in the world in their weight class. It’s going to serve as the only single match of the main card, as the rest of the event will be taken up by the first ever female Squads match. Although the main attraction will be the series of battles between some of the best female grapplers from both Europe and North America, this title-fight is one you can’t miss.
Williams was actually the last man to hold the Polaris featherweight title before Krikorian and he never lost it in a match either. Williams was already the promotion’s bantamweight and lightweight champion beforehand, and beating Tom Halpin at Polaris Squads 2 made him a triple champion. Defending two belts is difficult enough but alternating between three weight classes while also taking matches for other promotions is basically impossible. Williams eventually had to vacate his belt when he wasn’t able to defend it, and that’s how Krikorian had the opportunity to win the belt without actually beating him in a direct match for it.
Krikorian beat Cameron Donnelly back at Polaris 27 to win the vacant belt and although he’s already competed on Polaris since then, this will be his first title-defense. His last promotional appearance saw him move up in weight to beat Jed Hue at Polaris 32, and he immediately called out Williams after the match. The two men have some history together too, as Williams won a judge’s decision over Krikorian at Grapplefest 12 in 2022. Both men have developed a lot as grapplers since then and improved a lot, so it’ll be interesting to see whether that will lead to a different result this time around.
Polaris announced the news that Keith Krikorian vs Ashley Williams would take place at Polaris 32 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
