Russian aggression has also hit the Octagon. Fans will not see an attractive fight at Saturday’s tournament due to the war in Ukraine

An extremely difficult, yet understandable and quite expected decision. The Oktagon organization has decided to cancel one of the most anticipated fights of Saturday’s tournament, which will be hosted by the O2 arena. The reason is, of course, the war in Ukraine.

OKTAGON 31 has many excellent fights on the card, and given the events of this week, the battle between Andrey Kalashnik, who has roots and family in Ukraine, and Russian fighter Arthur Karavaev seemed all the more piquant.

But that fight will not happen after all. The organization made the announcement Friday morning at the official pre-tournament weigh-ins. However, the duel is not being cancelled completely, just postponed indefinitely.

Promoter Ondrej Novotny said that both he and co-owner of Oktagon Pavol Neruda, who even has a Ukrainian woman as his wife whose family lives in Ukraine, were not really happy about the decision.

“Both Arthur and Andriy wanted to join, we wanted to show that they are athletes who can normally exist together on the sporting field, but due to the security information we didn’t go through with it in the end. They both take it as a sport, but they both also understand the situation and they are happy with the decision,” Novotny said during the weigh-in.

“We are against any kind of war. We stand clearly on the side of Ukraine and Andriy, we support him and his family. But it is not the Russian athletes’ fault. Arthur Karavaev is our friend, he is the same Arthur we applauded three months ago. As soon as possible we will be happy to see him back,” Novotny added.

OKTAGON 31 will offer other excellent fights despite the absence of these two fighters. Pirat and Patrik Kincl will battle for the middleweight title, Ronald Paradeiser and Losene Keita will battle for the interim lightweight title, and Lucie Pudilova and Alex Lohoré will also be at the event.

Source: Octagon MMA