Currently on the worst run of his career, Arlovski still thinks he can turn it around and win the UFC heavyweight championship.
Andrei Arlovski has had his fair share of ups and downs in his fighting career … pretty natural considering he’s been competing since 1999. But the 40 year old UFC heavyweight’s latest down is the most severe of his career. Since 2016 he’s gone 2-7-1, and would currently be on a three fight losing streak if his last loss to Walt Harris hadn’t been declared a no contest after Harris failed a USADA test.
And it’s not just that he’s losing. The performances are flat too. But despite these facts, Arlovksi sees a good half decade more of fighting in his future as a fight at UFC on ESPN 3: Jacare vs. Hermansson against Augusto Sakai comes up on April 27.
“Best-case scenario, maybe four, five more years,” Arlovski told MMA Junkie in a recent interview. “We’ll see. I still have, like, at age 40, I’m training more than I used to train when I was 25.”
“Every morning, when I wake up in camp, I remember what I want. I want to be champion of the world again. I got a few losses right now, I think it’s like 50-50, but fact is I lost a couple of fights and I’m just in the beginning of my way again.”
Arlovski is currently at American Top Team and hoping to make another run. And hey, who knows? People wrote Arlovski off after his bad KO loss to Fedor Emelianenko back in 2009, only to see “The Pitbull” surge back into the UFC and win six fights in a row over the next five years.
But then, this ugly streak. Can Andrei snap it? At the very least, can he make his fights worth watching again? His past three fights say probably not, but here’s hoping UFC Sunrise proves me wrong.