“BAZARA 0 Fight Club IV” locks in its tenth confirmed matchup, and it’s one Latvian fight fans have been casting in their heads for the better part of a decade: Kaspars Kambala vs. Kristaps Zutis!
On September 12th at Xiaomi Arena, an EuroLeague legend finally crosses fists with the loudest showman in Baltic combat sports; a man who, this past February, swore he was done fighting forever!
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These two need no introduction to each other: in 2019, Zutis was Kambala’s manager. Both heavyweights spent weeks together in training camps at the SKITS club in Livani under coaching legend Josifs Kovči, and on September 21st of 2019, fought on the same Arena Riga card: one in the main event, the other in the bout right before it.
Then, from late 2021 into January of 2022, they became the faces of national TV as rival team captains on the boxing reality show “Boksa akadēmija”, which picked everyday Latvians out of hundreds of applicants, ran them through a camp, and closed off with a live boxing finale. The finale ended 2-2 between Team Kambala and Team Zutis. Officially, it was “friendship” that won…
But figuratively speaking, Kaspars Kambala may be the single most famous athlete on the entire “BAZARA 0 Fight Club IV” card. He starred at Homestead High School in Wisconsin, then spent four years with the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels (1997-2001), sharing a locker room with the future NBA All-Star Shawn Marion, leaving as the program’s 10th all-time scorer with 1,699 points and its fourth-best rebounder with 921 boards, and twice making the All-Mountain West First Team. His professional career ran through Efes Pilsen (Turkish champion in 2002 and 2003, plus the 2002 Turkish Cup), Real Madrid, UNICS Kazan and Fenerbahçe, where another Turkish title followed in 2007, alongside Latvian national team duty at EuroBasket 2001, 2003 and 2009.
Notably on October 30th of 2002, Kambala scored 41 points on FC Barcelona, sinking 18 two-pointers along the way—which still stands as one of the major 40-point performances of the modern EuroLeague era, next to Alphonso Ford, Carlton Myers and Bobby Brown.
Boxing entered his life through a fall. In December of 2006, FIBA suspended him for 24 months after a positive test for cocaine metabolites. Locked out of basketball, Kambala went 2-0 as an amateur boxer with two knockouts, then turned professional in Las Vegas in 2008 under Richard Steele, the legendary referee of some of the biggest fights in history, who called Kambala “the one”. Soon, basketball called him back for another nomadic decade through Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria, Iran and home.
Eleven years later, in March of 2019, weeks after scoring 20 points in his farewell professional basketball game for Jūrmala, Kambala returned to the ring at “LNK Fight Night 11” in Arena Riga and won—with Zutis working as his manager at the time. And in September of 2025, at 46, he made his third ring comeback at “Lucky Latvian Fight Club: Born to Win”. Kambala took home a cash bonus and the “Born to Win” belt.
The great showman and arena-seller Kristaps Zutis ripped seven straight knockouts between 2018 and 2019. Then came the ten seconds that made him a national headline: on September 21st of 2019, in the Arena Riga main event, Zutis knocked out Danny Williams, the former WBC world title challenger and one of only six men ever to beat Mike Tyson, with practically the first punch of the fight. Kambala fought, and lost, one bout earlier on that very card.
And then, a turbulent and loud career: a bout with Nikita Smirnovs was ruled a No Contest after both boxers were disqualified for unprofessional behaviour. In 2021 he flew to Tashkent to face Bakhodir Jalolov, the unbeaten Uzbek super heavyweight (who, months later, won the first of his two Olympic gold medals), and was dropped twice in the second round. In 2023 he challenged Arnold Gjergjaj for the WBF Intercontinental heavyweight title in Basel, lost, and announced his retirement, explaining that his mother had told him to quit. That retirement lasted less than six months, as by December, he was back—and at “KOK 122”, in front of a nearly full Arena Riga in October of 2024, Zutis performed a first-round knockout of rapper Sudrabu Sirds.
Which brings us to the past eighteen months, when Zutis fought almost exclusively against men who are now on this same card… Or, namely, a unanimous decision loss to Juris Zundovskis at “KOK 125” with the Latvian KOK Dream Boxing title on the line; a main-event draw with Kristaps Zile at Xiaomi Arena; the grudge fight with Francis Rozentāls at “BAZARA 0 Fight Club III”, the payoff to the fightball feud, where Zutis was dropped in the first round and knocked out in the second.
He invoked his contractual rematch clause in the ring that night, then reversed course days later on Instagram, announcing his retirement fight. That farewell came against Zundovskis at “KOK 128” on February 21st and lasted roughly ninety seconds with an illegal knee in the opening exchange, a shove of the referee, ultimately a No Contest, and an exit through the ropes.
To his credit, Zutis fronted the cameras afterwards, admitted he was wrong, apologized to Zundovskis, his own team and to the fans, and declared he was done entertaining.
So here is where the tenth fight of “BAZARA 0 Fight Club IV” stands. By September 12th, the Zutis’ retirement will have lasted not even seven months. He has already shared a ring with Rozentals, Zundovskis and Zile, three men fighting on this same card; the only Latvian name as loud as his own that he has never touched is the one he’s about to face.
Officially, Kambala has never lost a professional boxing match. Officially, Zutis has never needed a judge to win one, as he’s got real knockout power. But whether old rivalries will be settled for good, we can only hope to see September 12th, at Xiaomi Arena!
