Oktagon MMA’s Karlos Vemola on How He Ended Up Owning Two ‘Gigantic’ Crocodiles

Current Oktagon MMA 205-pound kingpin Karlos Vemola couldn’t say no to his son when he asked for a crocodile.

Vemola (34-6) is looking to once against make a statement against best-friend-turned-bitter-enemy Patrik Kincl in the upcoming Oktagon 43 headliner on May 20. The pair collided in 2018, when “The Terminator” took a decision over his adversary. Now, 37-year-old Vemola doesn’t expect things to go any differently as he eyes the Oktagon middleweight championship currently held by Kincl. While talking with Sherdog, Vemola — the first fighter out of the Czech Republic to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship — touched on his unique hobby of owning exotic animals. The UFC vet started to collect lions, crocodiles and others because he had no time to travel for holidays and wanted to create a holiday vibe at his house. As a child, Vemola didn’t have any pets, but now he owns a wide variety of them at his home, which calls “Vemolaland.” The occasion to add crocodiles to his collection arose when his young son asked for a reptile and got his wish granted.

“Once I took my kids to the zoo, and we obviously had some animals home, and my son, he was about four, goes, ‘Ah, the crocodile, that's a nice animal! Should we have it? Should we have a crocodile?’ And my wife goes up, ‘Don't be crazy, you can't have a crocodile.’ I just look at her and say, ‘Yes, he can. If my son wants a crocodile, he will have a crocodile.’ It took me one week, and I had a crocodile in my house. I got him only a small one, but I found the animal very interesting. Next to my living room, I had a big library when I bought my house. I don't really read books, you know, I'm not not really a library man. So I thought, ‘What am I going to do with the library?’ I start building there a massive swimming pool. My wife goes, 'I'm so happy we can have an indoor swimming pool.’ Yeah, by the following week, there were two huge crocodiles. Now, I’ve got two new crocodiles. They're over four meters there, about 600 pounds. They’re gigantic.”

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:33) Preparing for Kincl
(01:18) Training in different gyms across Europe
(02:28) Introducing “Vemolaland”
(04:47) His favorite animal
(05:47) His rivalry with Kincl
(08:51) Being the first Czech fighter to fight in the UFC
(09:37) His motivation
(12:20) His epic walkout
(13:24) Training with Mousasi
(14:35) Predicting a tactical match with Kincl
(15:51) Outro