Bellator Fighting Championships has announced a new addition to their roster: UFC Castoff Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko.
“He came in and met with us,” Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney told MMA Report. “We sat here in the office and we had a really long meeting. He is convinced at this stage of his career that he is at a place that he can really still excel and compete at a very high level.”
Matyushenko was released following a two fight losing skid, being finished by both Ryan Bader and Alexander Gustafsson. Gustafsson stopped Mayushenko by strikes at UFC 141 (Lesnar vs. Overeem) and Bader submitted him on the undercard of the last UFC on Fox card in Chicago.
Rebney had some additional words on Matyushenko’s arrival as well per MMA Report:
“The guy is 26-7. If you look down the list of the loses, he has lost to big names. When he loses, he loses to guys with very big names and he thinks he stay has gas in the tank. He feels that literally a couple of very good years left in front of him right now to compete at a very high level.”
“He looked at 205, we have the Emanuel Newton’s of the world, Mikhail Zayats and then we have [King] Mo coming back, Babalu and people like that. He just fit into this 205 division right now. We have extremely well known names and we got guys who can compete at a very high level that nobody has ever heard of and are working up that ladder real quick.”
