Will the former champion return to the Octagon? Heavyweight could see an interesting acquisition

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, former Octagon champion Michal Martinek has quit the Russian organization ACA and is now looking into his future. Several organizations are interested in him, and a return to the Octagon is also in the cards.

Michal Martínek was the first ever champion of the Czechoslovak Oktagon organization when he defeated Daniel Dittrich in July 2018 to become the heavyweight king. He even fought for a contract in the UFC, unfortunately unsuccessfully.

However, after that, he also defeated the star Viktor Peshta, who had already had several fights in the UFC. It was the biggest win of his career. He then got lassoed from abroad when he signed with the Russian organization ACA.

But he’s not continuing there now. In an interview with Sport.cz in March, he revealed that he was supposed to fight on April 15 in Minsk, but as soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, he reacted and refused the fight.

“The ACA has always treated me decently, everything was as it should be. But at the moment it’s not the way I want to identify with,” Martinek expressed at the time.

So the Czech fighter is now looking for a new engagement. There are several options in the game, and of course more than one organization is interested in a fighter of his quality. However, his return to the Octagon is also possible. The promoter Ondřej Novotný also admitted his interest in the MMA podcast Letem světem.

“Of course we are interested in Michal. I talked to him even before he officially quit. It was clear that ACA was closing its doors, a lot of their fighters are now approaching us saying they would like to join us. But Michal was used to fighting there for money, which unfortunately we can’t give him,” Novotný told Kaocko.cz.

The promoter and owner of the Oktagon organization added, among other things, that he has discussed the contract with both Martinek and his trainer André Reinders, and he feels that everything is on the right track.

In addition, Martinek added a video to Stories on Instagram of a shoot for RULL, the company that is handling the NFT project for Oktagon, which was announced at the Oktagon Time press conference. He also appeared in the video wearing Oktagon shorts.

Source: Kaocko.cz, Instagram, Michal Martinek, Sport.cz