Romani kickboxer from Czech Republic assaulted in Slovakia after winning match

From video footage of the incident circulating online it is apparent that Sivák did not initiate the conflict despite some tabloid media in the Czech Republic implying that he did. Those outlets are basing their reporting solely on the testimony of Basz’s partner, who alleged that they encountered reluctant attitudes from those managing the venue when they arrived for the gala evening.

“Števo was really looking forward to the RFA, but unfortunately, when we got there we had to deal with a gentleman at the front door who was unwilling to be of aid. I asked him if he could open the ramp for us because I had an invalid in the car and I needed to get him as close to the entrance as I could. There was snow, ice, and it was raining heavily. The man’s reaction was: ‘So what?’ I wanted to explain the situation to him and I don’t know why Mr. Sivák then responded by saying: ‘So what, my match is the headliner.’ I was quite startled by the fighter’s approach,” Basz’s partner described the very beginning of the conflict.

Basz’s partner said she didn’t address the incident at the time because she wanted to get Basz into the hall as quickly as possible. As the evening progressed, she told her friends about what they experienced arriving to the tournament and one decided to confront Sivák about it, doing so face to face.

The video footage shows Sivák backing away from an aggressive man in an orange t-shirt before deciding to respond and a brawl results during which a man in a wheelchair falls to the ground. It is unclear who pushed him out of the chair in the ensuing confusion, but it could not have been Sivák, whom the video footage shows as being quite far away from the man in the wheelchair at the moment when he falls.

Sivák has made a statement about the incident on his own website, claiming to have never seen his attacker before and that the assault was unexpected. “I believe he was high and also drunk. I’ve never laughed at anybody with a disability and what’s more, I’d never seen the person in the wheelchair before, and I’m angry that somebody fell on him. Anybody reasonable knows I am not to blame for that,” he said.

“My Dad would kill me if I were to ever laugh at a wheelchair user, or taunt them. The people around him shouldn’t be making things up just to earn some credit at my expense, we went back into the changing rooms. I may be a bastard in other respects, but not about something like that. What they’ve done crosses the line. When a person has adrenaline in his blood, don’t be surprised if he behaves differently, you can’t stop him after he’s won a hard match. If he’d done that to me on the street, I’d have passed the idiot by. I’m aware that so many people have watched the video because it’s of me. I’m not gonna allow myself to be stomped on, punched or yelled at. If they work their butts off like I do, they can be successful too,” Sivák said.

The RFA organization, which ran the gala evening, responded to the incident with embarrassment and did not understand why it had not been addressed before the tournament started. “I know Vašek, I believe I know him pretty well. Certainly there are matters I could reproach him about, but the idea that he would be arrogant or insult anybody with a handicap is something I don’t want to believe. Even if that were the case, it would be necessary to have it condemned through proper channels, not by assaulting him after a match,” Boris Marhanský, a co-founder of the RFA, told news server Sport.cz.

“I don’t know the gentleman in the orange t-shirt, but I saw him when he was taking a seat. His behavior appalled the people sitting at the nearby tables,” Marhanský said.