‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ Tito Ortiz (16-11-1) will meet Alexander Shlemenko (50-7) at Bellator 120 on May 17th as reported by MMAWeekly.
Ortiz returns from injury and will fight for the first time since July 2012 and subsequently his first post-UFC fight. Shlemenko is Bellator’s current middleweight champ and will step up to light heavyweight to face the former UFC champ.
The fight stemmed from the video below from the Russian challenging Ortiz to a fight and Bellator execs quickly organised the fight between the pair.
The Bellator 120 card as it stands is:
Eddie Alvarez vs. Mike Chandler III
Rampage vs. King Mo
Tito Ortiz vs. Alexander Shlemenko
Alan’s Angle: So 39-year-old Ortiz who has only won one fight since 2006 faces 29-year-old Shlemenko who is 28-2 since 2006. I know Ortiz will have the size advantage but that won’t matter for much in this fight seeing as Shlemenko won’t have much, if anything, of a weight cut and is in incredible form.
This fight seems like a ‘work’ from Bellator. Having both their middleweight champ face the high-profile Tito Ortiz is something that looks great on paper especially if there is a ‘fued’ brewing. This seems forced and unnatural.
In saying that, I am a big cynic but I am also looking forward to see how this plays out. So I guess in a way Bellator is doing something right, right?
