Will Fleury and Makhmud Muradov put on a thrilling back-and-forth battle for the Oktagon light heavyweight title in August, and the Irish talent feels that Muradov is trying to avoid running it back – and the promotion is helping him do it.
Muradov was saved by the bell in the first round, and then clipped Fleury early, to score a knockout 19 seconds into Round 2. Fleury, who lost the 205-pound belt but stills holds the heavyweight title, was complimentary of his opponent post-fight, and both said during the press conference they were open to an immediate rematch.
According to Fleury, things have changed since then.
“At the press conference, I gave him massive credit,” Fleury told MMA Fighting. “He composed himself really well between the first and second round. He landed a beautiful shot. You can argue it’s an early stoppage. On the night I said, he won this fight. The reason the referee was able to stop the fight early is I allowed myself to get caught. That’s all still true. But on that night, he said, ‘Look, I’ll fight anyone, anytime. I’m here to fight with the best people.’ And I said, cool, mate, would you do a rematch in December? And he said, ‘No problem.’ And I was like, f*cking fair play to you. ‘Cause we both know, it’s a tough fight, this could have gone either way. And I respected the f*ck out of him.”
Fleury said the narrative changed four days later, after a phone call from Oktagon owner Ondrej Novotny, who allegedly told Fleury that Muradov decided against a rematch for the light heavyweight belt, and instead pitched a heavyweight title bout with Fleury or possibly a move down to middleweight.
“So I was like, that’s not what he said on Saturday,” Fleury said. “And I was like, listen, that’s bullshit. He’s never fought at heavyweight. I gave him his first title shot at light heavyweight. He hasn’t even beat any f*cking contenders, he’s never defended the belt. And his argument is, well, I never defended the belt. But I beat all the f*cking contenders coming up to that. There was nobody to challenge for the belt when I went up to heavyweight. Not only that, the heavyweight title was vacant when I went up.
“I’d beaten the No. 1 contender and I’d beaten the No. 5 contender and I’d smashed those two. I’d finished both fights pretty convincingly. And then I got in and smashed the champion very convincingly. You’ve had one fight, very f*cking controversial fight where you got dropped at the end of the first round, and you came back and clipped the guy but got an early stoppage at the start of the second round.”
Fleury offered a counter to Muradov’s heavyweight ask, saying they have to go back to 205 pounds for a trilogy bout if he’s victorious in the rematch at Oktagon 100, which takes place Dec. 29 in Prague, Czech Republic.
“I eventually offer him the heavyweight title fight on the condition that if I beat him, he has to rematch at light heavyweight within three months,” Fleury said. “Very fair condition. I’m the No. 1 contender at light heavyweight. If you want to come up and get a free title fight without having to f*cking beat any of the contenders, the only way you’re getting at is if I beat you, you rematch me at light heavyweight. [Muradov said] ’Who are you to tell me what I can do? I’ll do whatever I want.’ OK mate, f*ck you. That’s our last communication.”
“He seems to have a little bit leverage with Oktagon because they seem to want to f*cking have a Czech-speaking champion,” he continued. “My résumé is a lot better than his, but unfortunately I feel like they’ll back him above and beyond and it’s very, very frustrating in a way. So it’s on me now to make the best case I can for this fight to happen at light heavyweight again, which is very unlikely, but to expose the fact that it’s bullshit that it’s not happening at light heavyweight. And then if he does end up going down to middleweight – because he is the interim champion there and he does have kind of a claim for that title and I kind of understand that to be honest – but it’s like, if you go back down, you don’t come back up without defending. And he’s going to claim, ‘Oh, that’s going to take me ages to drop to middle and come back up to light heavy.’ And I know that is a significant drop. That’s why I’m like, we may as well do light heavyweight now and get the rematch out of the way. Or do your f*cking heavyweight thing and then do the rematch a light heavy, I can get both my belts back. And then if you want to go down and f*cking do middleweight, fair enough, go down and do middleweight. But my fear is when he f*cks off down to middleweight, he’s going to take a long, long time to come back up.”
In the end, Fleury believes Muradov is in “a good position” with Oktagon promoters and doesn’t want to risk the belt he has just won. Fleury was also interested in cutting down to 185 pounds if victorious against Muradov to chase triple championship status, but it’s all up in the air right now.
“He’s surprised that I accepted the heavyweight fight, I think,” Fleury said. “It’s kind of f*cked up his plan. I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll fight you at heavyweight as long as you rematch at light heavyweight.’ And even at this point, the way it’s going, f*ck it. I might just be like, right, go on, f*ck it, we’ll fight at heavyweight because he can’t go back down to middleweight after fighting heavyweight. So if you say the conditions are the problem, here, let’s loosen that up a little bit and see how it goes. But ultimately, how does it look to everybody else? I feel it’s like, mate, you’re trying to avoid the fight because you know it’s a dangerous fight and you’re in a good position right now. I think it must look that way to most people, but it’s just about exposing what it is. His whole thing is like, ‘I don’t choose my opponents. I fight anyone, anytime.’ Yeah, that’s really proving to be true, isn’t it? [laughs] I think time will kind of expose a lot of this shit.”
The negotiations for a rematch have been “extremely frustrating,” Fleury said, because he feels at this point Oktagon is backing Muradov’s side of things. Days after his interview with MMA Fighting, Oktagon announced that a poll will decide the main event for Oktagon 100, with Muradov challenging Krzysztof Jotko for the middleweight belt or Fleury at heavyweight.
Muradov is a former UFC fighter with only two defeats in seven appearances in the promotion, losing to Gerald Meerschaert and Caio Borralho. In hindsight, Fleury believes he would have been in a better position with Oktagon to negotiate a rematch had he not be as polite in the immediate aftermath.
“I would have gotten a better position if I complained a shitload after the fight,” Fleury said. “If I had been unsportsmanlike. If I’d said, ‘What the f*ck, what was the referee doing?’ And that’s sad because we don’t want more of that crap in sport. I’ve just watched like Kareem Engizek complaining like, ‘Oh, he landed a low blow in the middle of the fight’ and he stole the belt back off Jotko after losing to him twice and all this crap, right? That’s not the type of man I got into martial arts to be. I want to represent good martial arts. If you go back and watch any of last few fights, I’m going in there, I’m whooping the guys ass and I’m giving them respect before and after, you know? And I’m not saying I don’t want to make it spicy and have a little bit of niggle in it, but at the end of the day, anybody who wants to get into that cage with me and scrap, I have a fundamental level of like, fair play to you for wanting to do this. ‘Cause it’s not easy. I get that it’s not easy. But if you’re going to give me your word on something and then you go back on that and say, ‘No, I’m the champ, I can do what I want.’ It’s like, well, I was just a champ and I gave you this match. So do you not feel some sort of an honest and then go, okay, we had a very close fight, very controversial fight, maybe I should give you the match back because you gave me this opportunity. All of the people I beat, I beat very convincingly, whereas pretty much the majority of the audience, besides maybe a few very diehard Muradov’s fans were like, ‘Yeah, that was a bit f*cking mental. That wasn’t really satisfying, we need a rematch on that.’
“Who knows how it all plays out. I don’t know if Oktagon will continue to protect him. And in a way I can understand that they’re not in a position where they can force him to do anything, but they definitely could have pushed him a little bit more towards this. Even the fact that Ondrej Novotny said on the phone to me a week ago, ‘I’m not pushing him to do the rematch. I’m okay with him going to heavyweight.’ You want him to be your triple champ. Right, you’ll give him way bigger opportunities than you’ve ever given me just because of where he’s from and who he is and the fact that he’ll sell for you more. And that’s business. That’s capitalism. That’s life. That’s f*cking the world we live in. But you talk about going above and beyond for the promotion, I’m the guy who’s gone above and beyond for the promotion my whole f*cking time there. They don’t talk about me showing up with a broken hand. If a German guy did that, it’d be like, ‘Oh, he’s got such heart. He’s amazing.’ Unfortunately, Ireland does have a massive domestic MMA audience right now. They’re not mad to play to that. They don’t have any real broadcasting rights here, they’re not on like the Irish mainstream media at all, so to them I’m just not as valuable as like a German star is, or as like a Czech star is, and Muradov is Czech speaking and he’s got a big audience in his back. It’s frustrating, but it’s understandable.
“Everybody seems to see [it as a] bullshit stoppage, all that kind of crap. Obviously the rematch is the thing to do. And then Oktagon aren’t willing to do that, which is very, very frustrating. And a lot of that feels because I’m the Irish guy, I don’t have a massive Instagram following, but I’ve come over and done some incredible shit with Oktagon. … I’ve been that guy and been that champion for two years. And now to be kind of put in this position like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t have to give you the rematch.’ It is frustrating. It is disheartening.”
A 37-year-old veteran of PFL and Bellator, Fleury was on an 11-fight unbeaten streak prior to the Muradov setback, and doesn’t know what the future holds for him after “frustrating” conversations for the rematch.
“They’re the biggest promotion in Europe,” Fleury said. “They’re doing really good things in a lot of ways. And the company, the average staff there, they’re great. They’re very professional. Everything is very well organized. It’s a well-run professional company more so than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. And I’m happy to be there at that. When I show up to the events, the people I deal with are lovely and things are run very well. But then when things like this happen, and even like just the constant vibe of like, ‘You’re never going to be one of the guys that we’re looking to get behind,’ that is really disheartening.
“And a bunch of times I felt like, well, f*ck it, what am I doing all of this for? If I acted like a diva I’d get a lot more out of these guys. That isn’t who I want to be. It’s not in my nature. I live this life because it allows me to be exactly who I am, but it does make you like, ‘OK, I’d rather be elsewhere.’ Of course. I’ve had a bunch of offers, especially after the [Martin] Buday win, and I chose Oktagon. I love the fan base there. There’s a lot about it that I do quite like, but yeah, moments like this… I’ve only got four fights left on my contract now, so it’s a while, but I’ll have that done by the end of 2027 and I’ll only be 38 at that stage. I train my balls off. I treat my body well and I have another at least four or five years left to me, so once we got to that point, it’s going to be interesting. The way I’m finishing people and the way I’m knocking guys out and the way I’m entertaining at the press conference and things like that, I know other promotions are seeing the value of that. It’s nice to have a little bit of leverage in those situations, but I’d ultimately prefer to be loyal.
“I actually took less money to stay with Oktagon. It meant more to me because I’m doing something significant here. I’m building something. The fan base is behind it. There’s a narrative behind your fights. They sell the story and the fights quite well. There’s a lot of things they do that I really like. The company is growing. The company is professional and it’s ambitious. There’s a lot I like, but I feel like they’re a little bit short-sighted in the fact that they’re like, we want Czech stars, we want German stars. Actually, lads, if you go for internet, people respect talent. And as long as you promote people and you tell the story the right way, talented people have more f*cking interesting stories and they’re going to be more interesting human beings overall. They’ve tried so hard to sell Frederic Vosgrone because he went massive, he went super viral on Instagram and all this, but ultimately it’s really backfired on him. He’s pulled out a three of his last four fights on fight week and the whole German fan base now seems to be like, ‘Why are you trying to push this guy so hard?’ They’re putting him in all of these like pretty big profile fights, main cards, all this. Guys, this guy has no talent. It’s only a matter of time until you cheapen your brand by promoting that above real guys. I don’t think that’s clicked with them yet. I think they’re like, ‘We just need a bigger celebrity. Someone who’s more famous than that.’ And I think that’s a lot of what this Muradov thing is about. Okay, you might sell tickets twice with that guy because you might sell it once and then ‘Ah, it wasn’t what I thought it would be, but maybe I’ll go back again.’ But when people show up and watch that shit more than two times, they’re going to go, ‘F*ck this. What is this? This isn’t entertainment. This isn’t sport. This is a lot of shit.’ Whereas like, which of my fights could you say you weren’t entertained by?”
If Fleury and Muradov rematch at Oktagon 100, the Irishman sees many openings for a finish.
“I have power. When I touch guys, like I showed it in the first round when I clapped him, he was basically gone,” Fleury said. “There’s definitely a couple of ways of getting this one done. I’ve watched a lot of them even in the last few weeks, and maybe I need to stop watching so much because maybe it’s not going to be him. Maybe I’m just torturing myself. I’m seeing a lot of things that I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s that’s a nice place to exploit.’
“But look, I’m not going to get too specific. I kind of think, in terms of getting it done, I’ve shown myself two easy pathways already where you could take them down and grind them out, or you could like actually just get them to go open. I hope the f*ck I get this fight and I can just go in and absolutely smash it and put this whole thing to rest and then move on with my career. But we’ll see. It feels like this whole thing is going to be a saga and really drag itself out because he doesn’t want to do it. I’m not letting it go [laughs]. I’m not just gonna back off and go out into the wilderness like, or fight other contenders. No, f*ck you. I’m the champion. Give me my belt back.”
