Who Should Be Next For Alexander Shlemenko?

Shlemenko just lost to Tito Ortiz. The casual fan would frown upon this and consider the bellator MW division as a joke. That looks bad for the company, so lets say Bellator decides to act on this and want to get a new MW champ. But who? Who can take the belt away from Shlemenko? IMO I don't see any MW in Bellator beating Shlemenko at 185. They would need to go on a MW signing spree and/or get their fighters to move into 185.



King Mo [12 - 4]
Douglas Lima [26 - 5]
Slava Vasilevsky [23 - 2]
Mamed Khalidov [29 - 4 - 2]

These four are the only fighters who I see as a threat to Shlemenko. I hear Mayhem is making a return, most likely in the Bellator cage but Shlemenko would destroy him easily. I doubt he'd even get through a tournament.

 

The mw gp winner!

Cooper vs Halsey

He will not do the same mistake and face a bigger guy like mo

 

I see Shlemenko walking through both of them.. but its MMA anything can happen. Mo can drop to MW. I believe he wrestled at 185 before.. But then again that was a long time ago.

 

Back to business as usual

 

Only one logical answer...Stephan Bonnar.

 

I can see him continuing to look outside his division for fights if Bellator does not present him with better opponents at 185.

 

They need to do Lima vs storm that's the fight to make, Lima has stated that he has to move up, difficult to make 170 for him

 

Super-fight vs Lima.

 

Open the wallet and bring mamed khalidov to the states

 

He's the MW champion. His next fight is against the next MW tourney winner. Doesn't matter whether he'd walk through them or if he'd get his face smashed in.

 

#STORMWATCH begins again.

 

Shamrock

 

The fun-est and most realistic option would be Lima. But Alex will crush at least one 185er before that fight is made IMO.

 

Hasley strength is his weakness and vice versa and he's way bigger. He could beat him. Lima can beat him. Lets just see how it goes. It takes a little hit but once he starts destroying dudes again people won't care

 

Khalidov or Lima would beat him for sure.

Storm should drop to WW if he wants to be taken seriously as a top fighter.

 

I think Hasley has the best shot. He's an amazing wrestler and an ex-205er, he could try and duplicate Tito's gameplan minus taking the body shots.

 

meh, the lose to Tito don't mean much IMO. Congretz to Tito for beating a fighter 2 weight-class below him & 'Storm' actually put hands on him a few times. Shlemenko is the #2 Middleweight in the world, outside of the UFC, only behind Khalidov & he will continue to beat the best Middleweights outside of the UFC.

 

The Lima fight would be weird because I think he would likely get thawmped and would be the smaller guy despite representing the championship at a higher weight class.

Remember when Warren went into the tournament while champ? I think that would be cool at WW for Storm.

 

It was only one class. Storm fights at MW, just because he is a small MW it doesnt make him a WW until he actually fights there. Storm weighed in at over 200lbs to fight Tito, not 170.

And Okami beats Shlemenko easy!