Alexander Shlemenko

Alexander Pavlovich Shlemenko (Александр Павлович Шлеменко, born 20 May 1984) is a Russian mixed martial artist currently fighting in the Middleweight division.

He is most notable for fighting for Bellator Fighting Championships, where he is the former Bellator Middleweight World Champion. Alexander is an expert in hand-to-hand combat and traditional kickboxing.

He trains at the "Saturn Profi" sports club in Omsk, Russia, and holds a degree in Physical Culture (specialization – Combat Sports Trainer) at the Siberian University of Physical Culture.

Shlemenko is ranked as the #8 Middleweight in the world by Fight!Magazine and #22 Middleweight according to global-mma.com rankings.

As a teenager, Alexander did skiing and Greco-Roman wrestling.

At the age of 15, Shlemenko seriously started to train ARB, which is the Russian abbreviation for "army hand-to-hand combat".

He competed in many regional and national tournaments in ARB, and got to the highest sport level by reaching the title of "master of sports".

After watching a professional pankration tournament, Shlemenko immediately wanted to try it out.

Shortly after that, he made his professional MMA-debut in 2004 at the age of 20 in his hometown Omsk, winning by TKO.

During the early stage of his professional MMA-career, Shlemenko competed in the IAFC (International Absolute Fighting Council).

Fighting as usual multiple fights per night, Alexander won most of them by knockout, which can be seen in his record.

In May 2005, after only one year of his professional MMA career, Shlemenko had an impressive 15–2 record, and was gaining more and more attention by the Russian fans and the media.

After the IAFC, Shlemenko fought in various organizations such as M-1 Mixfight and BodogFight.

He competed in EliteXC before the company went defunct.

In April 2006, Alexander faced the future Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Ronaldo Souza at Jungle Fight 5.

Early in the first round, Jacaré moved the fight to the ground, and got a full mount position.

After some heavy ground and pound, Jacaré submitted Shlemenko by an arm triangle choke.

Shlemenko didn't tap and got choked unconscious.

In his blog, Alexander later said, that he lost this fight, because he was a "young fool".

According to his own words, Shlemenko didn't even have a clue about fighting on the ground or grappling at all, he was still training as an ARB fighter (there is no ground game in ARB).

Competing in MMA was just a hobby to gain some money while studying.

After this fight, Shlemenko started to prepare himself like a professional mixed martial artist, training grappling as well.

According to one of his blogs, Shlemenko said that right now he would have a good chance to win in a rematch with "Jacaré".

Its assets have been acquired by Strikeforce, having made his successful U.S. debut on their 10 October 2008 ShoXC show on Showtime.

Alexander won most of his fights, often by KO or TKO.

Through the series of wins, some of his losses were corner posts for his development as a fighter and his whole MMA-career.

As Alexander stated during an interview in 2010, the hardest fight of his career was the rematch with Jose "Pelé" Landi Jons in September 2006.

The reason for this was, that Shlemenko noticed after the first round that he has broken both of his hands, but he still continued to fight.

Jose "Pelé" Landi Jons won by a disputed decision.

The only knockout loss of his career Alexander received from Jordan Radev, a Bulgarian Olympic wrestler and mixed martial artist.

Alexander caught a heavy left hook in the second round, which knocked him out.

Later, in an interview Shlemenko said that this loss made him stronger, and gave him a lot of motivation to train harder.

In 2010, Shlemenko signed with Bellator and made his debut in the Season Two Middleweight Tournament at Bellator 16, defeating Matt Major via unanimous decision.

In the semi-finals of the tournament, Alexander defeated Jared Hess, after Hess dislocated his knee, forcing the TKO via stoppage.

Shlemenko then faced Bryan Baker in the Bellator Middleweight tournament final on 24 June 2010 at Bellator 23.

He won the fight via TKO in the first round to become the Bellator Season Two Middleweight Tournament winner.

In addition to a $100,000 check for winning the tournament, Shlemenko obtained a chance to fight against Hector Lombard for the Bellator Middleweight Championship title at Bellator 34 on 28 October 2010.

On 28 October 2010 at Bellator 34, Alexander Shlemenko faced Hector Lombard.

Lombard controlled nearly the whole fight, landing elusive striking combinations and heavy elbows from Shlemenko's guard.

Despite taking a lot of damage that would've finished most opponents, Shlemenko actively fought back and even won the 5th round on the judges scorecards with a few well placed knees, some spinning backfists and stuffing takedown attempts.