Russian Phenom Alexander “Tiger” Sarnavskiy Joins Bellator Fighting Championships

Bellator’s Season Seven Lightweight Tournament just got its #1 seed, as Bellator Fighting Championships has signed undefeated lightweight Alexander “Tiger” Sarnavskiy. Only 23, “Tiger” brings a spotless 20-0 record into Bellator, including 17 finishes. Training under Bellator Middleweight World Title Challenger Alexander “Storm” Shlemenko, Sarnavskiy is looking to continue the tradition of Russian excellence inside the Bellator cage.

“Alexander Shlemenko has put a high standard of Russian dominance in Bellator by winning two middleweight tournaments,” Sarnavskiy said. “Now my teammate Andrey Koreshkov fights for Bellator as well and he recently won two fights by spectacular KO's. Vitaly Minakov also just signed with Bellator, and I expect him to become Bellator's next Heavyweight Champion. I want to follow in the footsteps of those men, and make Bellator proud.”

Recently ranked as the world’s #1 prospect at 155 pounds Sarnavskiy has finished nine of his last 10 opponents, and has yet to face a battle he couldn’t handle. Armed with a polished ground game and training under one of the best technical strikers in the sport, Sarnavskiy is prepared for the rigors he’ll soon face by entering the next Bellator Lightweight Tournament.

“The Bellator Tournament will be a difficult test for me,” Sarnavskiy said. “I will train and prepare myself the best I can. I have a huge responsibility to my coach, my manager, my fans and my country. I won’t disappoint them and I want to show them a spectacular performance.”

“Russia’s produced some incredible athletes that have had tremendous success in our sport, and having watched Tiger fight for the last few years, I expect great things from him,” said Bellator Chairman & CEO Bjorn Rebney. “He is an incredibly explosive and dynamic Mixed Martial Artist who should be a force here at Bellator.”

Source: http://www.bellator.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&ATCLID=205458845&DB_OEM_ID=23600
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Bellator is unstopable. Signing new and great names everyday! Nothing will top Bjorn Rebney now.

War !!!

Unless they don't cut fighters after one loss like masakatsu ueda and Mikhail Malyutin they will be fine

I had a feeling he wouldn´t stay with M-1 so I´m happy he chose Bellator instead of the UFC. Bellator is doing the right moves and they make things happen.

Tiger was supposed to fight Drinaldo for the #1 contendership at the M-1 LW title. Drinaldo was injured and then signed up for TUF Brazil. Tiger was very close to fighting Weichel for the title and staying with M-1.

Johan Lofgren wrote:I had a feeling he wouldn´t stay with M-1 so I´m happy he chose Bellator instead of the UFC. Bellator is doing the right moves and they make things happen.

Same here. I would have liked to see him fight Drinaldo and Wiechel for the title as well with M-1 but, like you said, at least he went with Bellator which is sweet. Knowing he was probably leaving M-1 I was hoping he would end up with either KSW, ONE FC, or Bellator.

I am a big fan of Bellator and was hoping he would sign up. I think it was always on the Cards with Shlemenko and Koreshkov there already. It seems every day Bellator are making a good signing. The only problem they are going to have is keeping their roster happy as only 8 can join a tournament and I doubt they can afford to have decent earners on the prelims.

I find it strange that the UFC seem to be neglecting all the good prospects that Bellator are picking up, especially the European fighters.

Anyway I am looking forward to the next season and of course Fridays Summer series.

BluebirdMMA wrote:I am a big fan of Bellator and was hoping he would sign up. I think it was always on the Cards with Shlemenko and Koreshkov there already. It seems every day Bellator are making a good signing. The only problem they are going to have is keeping their roster happy as only 8 can join a tournament and I doubt they can afford to have decent earners on the prelims.

I find it strange that the UFC seem to be neglecting all the good prospects that Bellator are picking up, especially the European fighters.

Anyway I am looking forward to the next season and of course Fridays Summer series.

It's called a Dana White crazy Russian 'can' boycott. They don't want to risk their home grown boys and their Brazilians (Wolfie ) getting beat by better strikers, submission-grapplers & "all around" better technical fighters. How would Herr Dana Weiß explain that to all the zuffa-youth.




*Important - The above statement did not apply to a few Brazilians....

bellator is stealing alot of m-1's talent, m-1 has to be careful with the contracts or this trend will continue...

BluebirdMMA wrote:

I find it strange that the UFC seem to be neglecting all the good prospects that Bellator are picking up, especially the European fighters.

Yeah, that baffles me. Zuffa recently (couple months back) signed 2 Russian prospects (Nurmagomedov and Gashimov), but both of these guys are based out of an American camp.

To be honest they simple don't scouting talent there plus is not easy to folow like usa and brazil, you have more dificulties dealing witch contracts, managers and the fighters due a lot a things like the language issue, fighters tied witch contracts (who can't make then exclusive, etc) despite have a lot of legit prospects there. The real problem they let all the job to Joe Silva and he he's to busy on the matchmaking and dealing witch orthers jobs (i belive only the ufc have over 400 fighters). They bring 2 russians last year plus the guy who lost to robbie lawler to StrikeForce, but this was thanks to k-dojo who showed then to Joe Silva. I belive that is a joke a organization like the ufc don't have a small group of people (maybe 5 or 6) to do this job (world scouting team). They are too worried about marketing team and everything and the average talent of a ufc show is getting worst and worst. Most of the today tuf alumni (from the last 4 years) is garbage and they have a lot of roster spots. About Bellator, they are small, but at lest they are trying to scouting fighters on europe not a great job but they are making the roster better.