Gzim Selmani has had quite the career and now it\u2019s heading to the BKFC ring.<\/p>\n
Selmani began competing in MMA as a teenager, including debuting with Bellator at just 19 years of age. Following that fight, and as he was honing his mixed martial arts craft, Selmani got a tryout with WWE and was picked up\u2014a run that lasted nearly a decade over two stints with the promotion. It was announced in December that Selmani, who was released from WWE at the beginning of 2025, signed with BKFC. He makes his debut at KnuckleMania 6 on Feb. 7 in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Known as Rezar in WWE\u2014one half of the championship winning Authors of Pain tag team\u2014Selmani had plenty of options on the table following his release, but heading to the BKFC world is where the road led.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter WWE, we left in January [2025], I was thinking if I wanted to continue wrestling or not,\u201d Selmani told MMA Fighting. \u201cTook a little break, healed from some minor injuries, and, yeah. I got back with an old friend of mine, Shane Watson \u2014 he\u2019s a boxing manager in the United Kingdom \u2014 and we sat around the table and discussed some options, some fighting options, boxing options, maybe a comeback into the MMA world where I\u2019m originally coming from.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, yeah, there were some options, some good options as well, and then one of the options was BKFC\u2026 and yeah, that\u2019s how it really stared. It\u2019s something that\u2019s in my blood, it\u2019s something that\u2019s in my DNA and I think I can do a lot of damage in BKFC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selmani revealed that promotions such as Misfits Boxing had reached out about securing his services. The 4-2 pro MMA fighter, who faced current UFC heavyweight Ante Delija in 2013, wasn\u2019t interested in the influencer and celebrity boxing scene.<\/p>\n
Having no fear of the stage, and having no cares in the world in regards to who he may share the ring with, Selmani believes he\u2019s making the correct decision at this point in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some boxing options against the celebrities, or whatever, but it\u2019s not really the route I wanted to go right now,\u201d Selmani explained. \u201cI\u2019m still young. I\u2019m 31 years old, I have a nine-year WWE career behind me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was 19 when I fought in Bellator in the heavyweight division. I was the youngest heavyweight there, and I think that\u2019s something maybe for in the future, but for now I want to compete against the best and I think the right choice is BKFC.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of now, Selmani\u2019s BKFC opponent has not been revealed, although there have been a number of names presented to him. Selmani\u2019s most notable MMA win came in 2014, when he submitted UFC veteran Oli Thompson in just 18 seconds for the BAMMA promotion.<\/p>\n
Despite being out of combat sports for over a decade, Selmani is eerily calm about getting into a bare-knuckle fight in BKFC\u2019s annual extravaganza. The biggest reason for his relaxed nature is the work he\u2019s done in the gym and on the mats over the years with high-level fighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come from Team Golden Glory, a lot of people don\u2019t know what that means,\u201d Selmani said. \u201cWe spar two times a week with MMA gloves, like three, four-ounce gloves, and we sparred hard, you know. We would knock guys out on the regular, on a spar day. So I let my teammates hit me with MMA gloves when we spar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spar with boxing gloves, 16-ounce, they fight with four-ounce [MMA] gloves. So, of course, I\u2019m excited to get back into fighting, but there\u2019s no nerves. It\u2019s work for me and I know what I can do. I know my power.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I drop guys with 16-ounce gloves, I\u2019ll break their face with no gloves, guaranteed. A lot of people underestimate fists. These are knives. If you actually know how to fight, like me, these are murder weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gzim Selmani has had quite the career and now it\u2019s heading to the BKFC ring. Selmani began competing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[33307,42718,49,48,641,701,638,82,3194],"class_list":["post-387799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bkfc","tag-bkfc-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}