Former kickboxing rival signs with UFC and makes a run at the division title? I swear I’ve seen this somewhere before…
It’s official.
Former GLORY Kickboxing champion, Artem Vakhitov, is now signed to the UFC light heavyweight roster after his first-round technical knockout victory over Islem Masraf as part of Dana White’s “Contender Series” earlier this week in Las Vegas.
You can thank reigning 205-pound champion Alex Pereira for the assist.
“I’ve been back there talking to Alex this whole time,” White told reporters at the “Contender Series” press conference. “He said, ‘This is what I think. I think he’s talented enough. I think he deserves to be here.’ Which is what I thought, too, going in. He said, ‘I think that the Contender Series, no matter where you’ve fought or what you’ve done, puts a different type of pressure on you, and you might not perform the way you normally would.’ He thinks that this is a tremendous amount of pressure. He said, ‘All I know is I’m glad I never had to go through the Contender Series.’”
Vakhitov had an opportunity to face Pereira backstage after his Masraf fight.
“To be honest, I’m very happy to see you winning,” Vakhitov told Pereira through a pair of translators. “I love what’s happening with you right now over here. So just keep doing it, keep winning, I’ll be watching this. I’ll be focused on myself. Hopefully after a few more [title] defenses, it will happen so that we’ll meet each other again. Nothing but respect. All love and it’s just sports. That’s all it is.”
For now.
“You owe me one,” Pereira replied.
Vakhitov dropped a split decision to Pereira at GLORY 77 in Rotterdam then avenged his loss by majority decision at GLORY 78 just a few months later, also in Rotterdam. Despite their history, the Russian striker is just 3-1 in MMA and still has a long way to go before scoring a “Poatan” rubber match.
As for Pereira, his next assignment will likely come against the winner of this fight.