Charles Martin could not think of a more fitting destination to flip the script.

Much has been made of Jared Anderson headlining his first ESPN show and at home in Toledo, Ohio. The city also has special meaning to Martin, who accepted this fight on less than two weeks’ notice when Kazakhstan’s Zhan Kossobutskiy (19-0, 18KOs) was unable to secure a visa in time to travel for the fight.

Whoever is the opponent, is never of concern to the 37-year-old southpaw. The cherry on top to facing a young gun in the 23-year-old Anderson (14-0, 14KOs) is that it comes in the city where Martin ended his amateur career more than a decade ago on a high note.

“This is Jared Anderson’s city but I got history here, too. This is going to be my homecoming,” Martin calmly but firmly insisted to BoxingScene.com. “I’ve fought before not just in Ohio but exactly in Toledo, where I won the National PAL Championship in my final tournament.  I'm looking forward to returning there and get this win.”

Martin (29-3-1, 26KOs) won the 2012 National PAL tournament at the Seagate Convention Center, now known as Glass City Center, In Toledo. The venue is literally across the street from where he will meet Anderson, atop an ESPN telecast from the Huntington Center.

A three-round win over Stephan Shaw marked the final fight of Martin’s career before he turned pro just two weeks later. The heigh of his career saw the St. Louis-born heavyweight—now based in Las Vegas—capture the IBF heavyweight title in a January 2016 third-round injury stoppage of Vyachaslev Glazkov. His reign lasted just twelve weeks before a second-round knockout defeat to then-unbeaten Anthony Joshua.

Martin is just 6-2 since his London trip, including a fourth round knockout of 2004 U.S Olympian Devin Vargas (22-8, 9KOS) on the September 4 Andy Ruiz-Luis Ortiz non-televised undercard from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

There are several contributing factors to his level of inactivity, though largely attributable in recent times to the near impossibility to get any of the top heavyweights in the ring.

He was in training to face Gurgen Hovhannisyan in a crossroads fight that was previously scheduled for the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia undercard April 22 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The bout was moved off the show when the unbeaten Armenian suffered an elbow injury during training, and due to land on the Errol Spence-Terence Crawford undercard July 29 also at T-Mobile.

The call to fill the void for an opponent to face Anderson in his hometown return was significant enough for Martin to jump at the chance. The fact that it lands in a city dear to his heart only provides additional motivation to shock the world this weekend.

“The last time I was here, I left as an amateur champion,” stated Martin. “This time, I will leave with a win and get back on the path to become world heavyweight champion once again as a pro.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox