Former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi is currently contemplating a move down to the UFC’s middleweight division, but he’d like a big name opponent to make it worth his while.
“It’s all about match-ups,” Mousasi tells MMAfighting.com. “Let’s say they’re going to give me somebody like Vitor Belfort that’s maybe a contender. That’s the kind of fight I want. The fight I had last the guy wasn’t known, he wasn’t ranked. It doesn’t mean anything. But I have a history. I only haven’t fought in UFC, but I have a history.”
Mousasi defeated late replacement Ilir Latifi in his UFC debut earlier in the year, but as he suggests, his overall resume contains much bigger victories than that.
Defeated just three times in his 39 fight career, Mousasi has won titles in most of the major promotions he’s ever fought for including Strikeforce, DREAM and Cage Warriors, claiming victories over the likes of Hector Lombard, Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, Mark Hunt and Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, along with an unbeaten 5-0 kickboxing record.
With a resume like that Mousasi certainly deserves a big fight once he gets back to full fitness, but while it sounds like a good fight, I’m not convinced he would be able to immediately land a fight with Belfort who could potentially be next in line for a title shot against the winner of Anderson Silva Vs Chris Weidman.
