Alexander Shlemenko: “If You’re Not Media-Friendly, You’re Not a True Professional”. UFC 327 predictions

Hello everyone, friends! You are watching the weekly discussion on MMA-TV.com. My name is Julia Mirey, and today we will be discussing the recent news that Alexander Shlemenko has officially signed a new four-fight contract with the ACA. His very first opponent is set to be Ramazan Emeev, who is a well-known former UFC fighter. The tournament will take place on June 19th in Alexander’s hometown of Omsk. And today we’ll talk about this signing with Alexander himself. Hello, Alexander!

Hello there, it is good to see you, how are you?

You have faced many star opponents in your distinguished career. David Branch, Tito Ortiz, Anatoly Tokov, and Gegard Mousasi. Where would you rank Ramazan Emeev among them?

Well, you know, those were all in different years. So, at the time when they were present, of course, Ramazan might not have been in the same specific positions or roles. And here, again, you have to consider the organization as well. Looking at the ACA organization now, Ramazan is the number one contender. In the rankings, since the champion left, and before that there was a fighter, Shamil, who moved to another weight class, Ramazan rightfully earned the top spot. So, without a doubt, in the middleweight division, eighty-four kilograms, in the ACA organization, he is now the definitive number one. If you compare him with them, but again, as I said, it wouldn't be a fair comparison, because at the moment... He certainly seems to appear significantly more attractive than they do. Some of them have actually ended their careers, right? Most likely, David Branch and Tito Ortiz have both retired from their careers. But Tito Ortiz has definitely retired, and that's a different weight class. That's why it's really hard to compare here. All I can say is that... Or rather, I can say that Ramazan is currently number one in the middleweight division.

Your fight was supposed to happen 10 years ago in M one. Since that time, do you think he has become much stronger or is it the opposite?

Well, again, it's hard to say. He has definitely become more experienced. He has gained experience. If you compare his performances in the UFC, where did he go? He moved to a different weight class. So it's also hard to say for sure how well he performed. Because if he had competed in the UFC at middleweight, where he basically fought his whole life, that would be one thing. But I can say for sure that he does significantly better at middleweight. That is, he was the only one, he was the champion. In the UFC, he fought at 77 kilos, and his career wasn't as successful there. But after returning to Russia and moving to middleweight, he found himself very close to securing a title fight once again... I'm certain that, right now, we are fighting in a high-stakes title eliminator bout. So he is already just one step away from the title, you could say.

Have you rewatched his recent fights, or are you just planning to sit down and study them?

Well, I remember many of his fights anyway. After all, I follow a lot of our fighters, especially since I was supposed to have a fight with him. So of course, I remember his fights exactly as they happened. Although, quite probably now, either this week or the next, I will begin a much more thorough and detailed study of them.

It seems like your training camp falls on your birthday. So, does that mean you'll be celebrating it during training?

I'm not really a fan of celebrating, you know, especially my own birthday. I actually much prefer, quite the opposite, to be the one giving gifts and to be at other people's celebrations. And as for my own plans—this certainly isn't the first time I've found myself training hard on my birthday. So, I'll be heading to the gym to keep training just the same as any other day. I'll even tell you a bit more: my student Andrey Koreshkov has a very important fight coming up on the twenty third, so we are staying focused. It will be in Moscow, at Fight Nights. So as it turns out, on May 23rd, there is a good chance I won't even be in the city for my birthday this year. I'll be helping Andrey Koreshkov.

That's a really great day too, especially if he actually wins.

We always strive to do everything we can to win.

Many fighters who become coaches say that it's much harder to be in someone's corner, to be a cornerman for your own student, than to go out there yourself. Is it the same for you?

Well, of course. But let's start with the fact that for a very long time—basically my whole career—I've been a sort of player-coach, one way or another. I've had a lot of different situations. For example, there was a specific situation at Fight Nights when five of my own trainees fought one right after another before me. We had a team battle against the Far East, Siberia. And I was fighting in the main event. So I watched all five of those exhausting fights, and it completely drained me. After that, I fought in the main event of the evening and barely managed to win by the skin of my teeth. It's a good thing that I won, because it was so grueling for me, since I just had no emotional or psychological strength left in my system. So, naturally, it's much more difficult. Just recently, our fighter, my next student, Alexander Zyryanov, fought in China. That was last week. He was fighting for the title. Speaking of the JCK champion, the largest and most prominent organization in China. And again, I was watching the broadcast from the comfort of my home, watching with my wife and kids, and honestly, you know, it is incredibly tough to sit through. You start to sweat, and emotionally, it is such an intense workout that there is really nothing more serious or emotionally taxing than that. In fact, it's much harder than performing yourself. Because in that case, you are fully aware of yourself, you control all your actions, and you are responsible for everything. But when your student is fighting, it's much more difficult, much harder, because yes, you worked with him, you prepared together, but he doesn't always hear you. The responsibility still falls more on you. You know how people like to say here? Victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. And it's great when everything works out. It's great when, in the end, your student wins, and all that pressure immediately falls away from you. But there are all kinds of situations.

That's a great phrase. Thank you. You just mentioned your wife Alyona. How exactly did she react to you signing a brand new four-fight contract with ACA, with your very first fight being against the number one ranked fighter in the division?

"She was fine with it. She takes it completely in stride, because she's been watching this for so many years. I started in two thousand four. We first met way back in the middle of 2005, and ever since that time, she has been watching all my fights and is totally okay with everything. As a result, she has seen a great many different fighters who have stepped up to face me. When you look at the whole situation, the main thing that matters is that she genuinely enjoys the experience of watching. And it's really great when she can watch live for about a third of the fights. But again, if you were to ask me, it will be much more difficult for me to perform in the city of Omsk. Even though people often say the home crowd helps, there is already a massive amount of hype surrounding it, and now a lot of people are reaching out to me personally for tickets. Many people are already eager to come out

Was it your initiative, your condition for signing, that the fight would take place specifically in Omsk and that ACA would come to Omsk at all?

"No, it just happened that way. We just invited Aslanbek to visit us. I fully understand that ACA will come to the city of Omsk, and I will help make that happen and will only be glad about it. Because it's an extra tournament, an extra opportunity for fighters to get started, not just from the city of Omsk. We live here, and beyond the Urals, there are only about 20 million of us according to official statistics. Just imagine how few of us there are here, from the Urals to the Far East. And often it turns out this way—I live in Siberia myself, I know all these difficulties—it's much easier to arrange and organize fights for fighters who live there, in the capital and so on. Because even something as basic as, say, considering a logistical issue, you still have to fly through Moscow. And then there are the time zones and everything else. All of this makes things more complicated. That's why, if a major promotion comes to us—which, again, will open doors for many young fighters, because many fighters from Siberia, from Kazakhstan, from Northern Kazakhstan, and so on—they will be able to participate in tournaments in Omsk in the future. We had the pleasure of inviting Aslanbek Badaev to our SFC tournament

I also wanted to mention something else as well. When my colleague, a sports journalist, and I were discussing your signing, he pointed out that at this particular moment in time, among the local fighters who compete specifically in Russia —not on the international stage, but here within our own country—, there are very few standout personalities. And your signing, in this sense, definitely helps to promote the sport as a whole in our country. So, in your opinion, are there currently any athletes competing here who, in terms of their media presence and talent, can headline major championship fights? And if you do follow anyone, who are they?

You know, many fighters—let me say this right away—young fighters often get confused. Media is not about giving some interview somewhere, that nobody watched or simply making an appearance on some TV channel—that's not real media. Media is, first and foremost, about a person's charisma. If you have it, you'll be genuinely interesting to the public. But if you're just being shown, you have no charisma, your fights aren't interesting, and you're not interesting as a person, then I won't follow you. Nothing will come of it. Right now, among the younger generation, you can see who's competing in Russia. I mostly watch the guys who put on exciting fights. But most often, these people can also lose, because they take risks. I don't like how the development, you know, has gone a bit off track. And now there are a lot of boring fights, fighting for points, fighting just to hold positions, and things like that. The main thing is not to take risks. And that's what has slightly slowed down the development of MMA. But now everything is changing. If we look at the UFC, which everyone is striving to get into and is considered the standard, they've started to get rid of such fighters there. So, in reality, you just need to sincerely do your job. Don't think about the media. Now, a lot of people have picked up on this too. Media. Yeah, I'm not media-savvy. But if you're not media-savvy, the question is, why aren't you? Learn how to speak. Study, go back to school, try to get a higher education, read books, learn how to speak well. Not even necessarily to speak beautifully, but at least learn how to speak at all. Because many fighters can't even put two words together. And then they say, 'Well, I'm not media-savvy.' Well, why aren't you media-savvy? Because, basically, people just can't hear you.

By the way, a wide range of professional athletes and even our fellow sports journalists and colleagues have openly criticized the UFC for letting go of good athletes in favor of people who focus more on putting on a theatrical show for the audience. But you, on the contrary, seem to strongly support exciting and intense fights over boring ones, even if those boring ones might be technically precise and flawless.

You know, here you really need to look specifically at who they're talking about. Names, surnames, patronymics. First name, last name, patronymic, as they say. Because, you know, for many of those whom the UFC let go, I actually support them in that decision. Because it just so happened that, for example, my own career developed that way. I was never super technical. Or anything like that. I showed emotion. My boxing matches were completely unpredictable, and I was known to take a hit too. The one and only thing I never did was give up. I always went to the end. And people liked that. But then a whole cohort of people appeared who were talented, good at wrestling in some areas, crafty in others, sometimes not really hitting but just feinting, in other words, not taking risks. And what do we see? Well, you have to remember that, after all, our entire MMA industry is a legitimate professional sport. A professional differs from an amateur in that he is not just an athlete. He is a professional who gets paid for his sport. So what is amateur sport? Amateur sport is simply a recreational sport that people often enjoy doing in their free time. And at other times, they work at their jobs. It's always been that way. A professional is defined as an individual who does their job exceptionally well. If you're not media-savvy, or if you simply can't work with the public, then you're a highly ineffective professional. Then this isn't the specific line of work for you. In that case, you should just go do something else entirely.

That is essentially all there is to the situation. If we look back at Ramazan, we have always known him as a kind and friendly person. And in this specific sense, he is quite similar to Anatoly Tokov. And when you faced off against him, you used an element of intense psychological pressure. How will you prepare to approach Emeev? Will you also try to apply that same kind of pressure on him?

You know, we just had some history with Anatoly. It's not like I was deliberately doing something. It's just that It was our first time meeting each other. And it didn't go very well. In general terms, my entire interaction with Anatoly's team didn't really go very well at all. With the Fedor Team. For various reasons. And then, you know, before the first fight, I hadn't seen Fedor Emelianenko's interview. I didn't understand his attitude toward me. Later I found out about all of it, I understood everything. And I just started behaving differently. I haven't really had any interactions with Ramazan yet. Everything changes very quickly. You know, maybe some interview will come out. I might see something—there's still a lot of time before the fight. Maybe something else will change? So it's hard to say for now.

So, is everything happening sincerely? Yes, yes.

I've never been, you know, I've never played any role, never put on any masks. So, with Anatoly, it was the only time I was genuinely interested in meeting. Why? Because after our very first fight, I really didn't like the way things unfolded afterwards. Yes, I didn't have— I completely lost that fight. Yes, at that specific time I simply didn't have what it took, Not that I didn't have the right, but it just didn't feel appropriate for me, as the one who lost, to say or ask anything. But when they finally arranged our official rematch, I had the perfect opportunity to revisit the entire situation once more and the chance to talk things through properly, which is exactly what I decided to do.

You were the former Bellator champion and at one point were very close to signing a deal with the UFC. Do you think ACA is currently on par with those two world-class organizations, especially when compared directly to Bellator?

Bellator has already passed away.

Well, I guess the PFL then.

Unfortunately, from our MMA scene. So with the UFC... Well, you have to look at it this way, you know, what I can state with absolute certainty is that ACA has made significant progress and is developing, that is undeniable. Even compared to, say, five years ago. It's already a different promotion. It's a much more professional promotion now. That's for sure. Even if... I can tell you, after all, for a long time I also... It's not that I had negotiations, but there were some initial approaches from ACA to start talks. And I can say that before, it was just like kindergarten. To be perfectly honest, it really was like kindergarten. But now I can say it's extremely professional. A very professional approach, a very well-thought-out approach. That's why I truly believe that right now ACA is on the move, it's steadily developing, and it's definitely growing. And regarding competition, well, what kind of competition do you want? If you're interested in athletic competition, you can only determine that by matching up the fighters. But, as a rule, many fighters who perform well in the UFC start performing not as well outside the UFC. The UFC promotion itself promotes those who are beneficial to them and gives opportunities to the guys who are advantageous for them. I believe it is fair to say you will not find much room to argue with me on that. That is exactly why it is so difficult to evaluate particular things like this in this specific environment. The fact that the UFC organization is currently bigger than ACA, well, that's undeniable. No one can argue with that either. So it's difficult to compare them here. What I do see is that the ACA organization is developing, and I'm glad to be a part of its growth. I will do everything in my power to effectively compete and, in some aspects, surpass the success of the UFC.

You are someone who has every single thing that a professional fighter dreams of when they finally step into the octagon . You have the belt from one of the best organizations in the world, you have your own league, and you have a network of fight clubs across the country. What drives you to keep stepping into the octagon again and again , especially now that it seems like you've already achieved everything possible?

Honestly, it's just interesting to do it. I still haven't lost my enthusiasm. It's exciting to compete. The only thing I've noticed is that I can't always get motivated for every opponent anymore. Because, as you said, that specific kind of drive and purely sporting interest can sometimes be lost. So the fact that I still have the physical energy, the inner strength, and the necessary time to dedicate myself to training and competing at this level is a very good thing. That is exactly why I feel motivated to keep doing it every day. Simply because I enjoy doing it. That's all. Maybe it sounds trivial to some people, or maybe some just don't get it. But that's just who I am. I genuinely enjoy doing it, so I do it. And also because there are truly extraordinary people I look up to, people I am constantly trying to emulate. You know, like Randy Couture, 45 years old. He honestly looks significantly better than many other individuals who are 45 years of age and aren't competing. And you know, just looking at it from the outside, I would, of course, also like to be a champion at 45. To maintain such an impressive physical appearance as well. Imagine, if you're a champion and still competing, fighting at the highest level, what does that mean? This signifies that you possess excellent health and wellness indicators. Because there is simply no other way to achieve your goals. You cannot expect to become a true champion if you are carrying a huge belly, or if you can't even walk up two flights of stairs without getting completely winded and out of breath. So, it is really about a consistent commitment to staying as healthy and as physically strong as you possibly can be.

Take, for example, our MMA Series, where we have the champion of champions, Sergey Dyakonov. He eventually decided to leave the sport, but after a full year away, he came back to us. And when I asked him why he chose to return, and what drew him back here again, he told me, 'I realized that I am addicted to the intense adrenaline I get whenever I step into the cage.' He explained that this rush he experiences when entering, absolutely nothing else can give him that same feeling. And what about you— What do you feel? What is it that attracts you the most? What is the coolest thing, the one thing you can't get anywhere else except when you step into the octagon?

It is absolutely clear to me that my entire life will always be very closely connected with sports well into the future. This is because, for example, my children are constantly training, and I am always right there with them at their many different classes, and they also spend a lot of time training at my own gym. But still, when you are actually out there doing it yourself, it is a completely different feeling. The things you experience in those moments, these powerful and deep emotions—I have to agree, these are the kinds of intense emotions that are incredibly hard to explain to anyone else. You have to truly experience them for yourself. Because if you haven't felt them firsthand, it's pointless to try to explain the feeling.

It's impossible. You have a contract for four fights. After that, if everything goes well, will you continue?

It's hard, you know, to look that far ahead. You asked the right question—I have my own promotion, and I've developed it pretty well. And honestly, my head seems to work pretty well too, I think. So, you know, I definitely won't be lost in this life, if that's how you could say it. So what keeps me here? The primary reason that keeps me staying here, more than anything else, is that I truly enjoy doing this work. If tomorrow I stop enjoying this, or I find something that suits me better and is more interesting, then I'll just move on to a new activity, that's all.

Final question. In your personal opinion, what character traits are developed by practicing martial arts?

The primary character trait, you know, that I would highlight and tell you as an educator by my first university degree. Many people forget that the scariest thing for a child is to become an adult, to leave behind parental care, to stop being fully provided for by their parents, and to become independent. It's very difficult to become independent, especially if, on top of everything else, you play team sports. Your teammates can also help you. I think you understand what I'm talking about. If you play football on a team where all the guys are physically powerful and dominant while you are not quite as strong as the others, you can still win major championships just because of your teammates, even if you're not strong yourself. But in our sport, that is simply not something that can ever happen. And here, you very quickly come to understand that you have to take responsibility for everything yourself. For yourself, and for everything else. And eventually you have to grow up and become fully independent. Then, as various different problems begin to arise, you have to find ways to solve them. And you know, martial arts are truly incredible because they teach a person not to get lost in life. I have rarely met people who came from martial arts and achieved significant results, who then got lost in life somewhere. They generally find their way just fine. Why is that? Because they have the most important thing. They have learned not only to compete, not only to fight, but also to be independent. And on the contrary, to help people, to help their parents. That's why I always recommend to everyone... to bring their children to martial arts, because there's this paradox: it seems like a tough sport—really tough, especially if we're talking about mixed martial arts, which is the toughest kind of martial arts, the toughest, yes—but at the same time, the return you get from it is tremendous. To put it in a slightly different way, you find yourself navigating through an incredibly challenging and demanding system, and you work to become as efficient and independent as you can. Essentially, as a parent, you no longer feel that constant sense of fear or worry for your child, because you have seen that they have truly learned how to handle things and do something truly meaningful and productive for themselves. And most importantly, many people don't understand this—especially the weak ones—they like to shout, 'So what, are you the strongest? What will these martial arts even give you?' They don't understand that a person's main strength isn't about how many people they've beaten up, or how tough an opponent they can knock out, or anything like that. Obviously, for every strength, there can always be an even greater strength. However, it is precisely that inner self-confidence that comes to you through years of experience in martial arts. And it is exactly that same self-confidence that all sorts of losers often lack. I know that many people, even without any martial arts training, develop a strong sense of independence through life's challenges. But martial arts do this very well.

Thank you. That was a really cool and truly motivational speech. So, it is now time to move into the predictions portion of the show. The Light heavyweight division , UFC title fight. Jiri Prochazka versus Carlos Ulberg. Who do you think will win? In which round? What method?

Well, to be honest, Jiri Prohaska is much closer to me. I happen to know both of them, but as for his current opponent, I honestly can't seem to remember him at all. So, I truly think that he will be the one to win this fight. He'll most likely win by using his striking, because that's his primary style, that Prohaska. As for which round, I honestly don't know. It's hard to say, because I can't really figure out who his opponent is. For now, at least.

All right then, let's move on to the next part. Azamat Murzakanov, Paulo Costa, once again. Who will win, in which round, and by what method?

Yeah, but I think Azamat Murzakanov will win by knockout. I'll explain why. Because Paulo Costa is not a very consistent fighter, especially when it comes to his fighting spirit. And Azamat has shown that his striking technique is significantly better than Paulo Costa's. Mentally speaking, he is stronger and more resilient as well. That is exactly why I believe he will win by an impressive knockout in the early rounds.

Alexander, thank you for answering the questions and spending this morning with me. For you, it's probably already daytime, right?

Yes, that's right. Thank you, goodbye.

Thank you very much, goodbye.