Dealing with adversity, with loss, is often what defines a champion. Long streaks of dominance are fine and preferable, but they don't tell someone what kind of fighter they are.
Heading into his light heavyweight fight against UFC hall of famer Tito Ortiz, Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko had won thirteen straight fights. So, it is little wonder that he felt so confident heading into the fight.�
After being dispatched via choke by Ortiz in under three minutes, however, the Russian admits to being "shaken up." Shlemenko's dominant streak of wins had just come crashing down, but he responded to the fall like a true champion - by getting back in the gym immediately.�
"I started training again the next day, after the fight [with Ortiz]," he tells Cagewriter through a translator, two days before returning to the cage in Phoenix against Brandon Halsey.
"I was so upset and not just because I lost, but because of the way I lost. I didn?t even get punched once. I didn?t get scratched in the fight...the loss really shook me up. It shook me to the point where, after the fight, I feel like a new fighter. So, that and because I had to help a student of mine get ready to fight, it was easy psychologically and physically for me to get back into training hard."
Shlemenko also says he made a great deal of changes in his training, from stand up striking to wrestling and submission work. However, the biggest change in his training was his attitude towards it.
"Yes, I made some significant changes," he reveals.
"First and foremost, however, I changed my attitude towards training. During my preparation for Tito, I felt way too relaxed. I have changed my mental approach to training, in addition to learning a lot of new techniques."
Shlemenko may need all that in order to win his next bout on Friday. According to the champion, his opponent Halsey brings a strong grappling game and a sharp mind into the fight.
"He's a strong, big guy with a lot of weight. Obvisouly he's a great wrestler and against Brett Cooper he showed that he's also a thinking fighter," he says.
"He thinks about strategy before his fights and he utilizes that strategy well in the fight."
In Halsey, Shlemenko will fight an undefeated contender who doubtless has the confidence of a professional who has never tasted defeat. "Storm" has the confidence of a champion recently wounded, however, and the lessons learned from recent defeat may make him all the more dangerous.
He doesn't know what will happen on fight night, but he has visualized one thing over and over, in the weeks leading up to Friday - Winning. "It is difficult to visualize what may happen in a fight," he admits.
"But the one thing I can visualize is that, at the end of the day, my hand will be raised again and I will keep my belt."
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