Gzim Selmani, a former WWE and NXT tag team champion, is ready to make his mark on the BKFC world, and is ready for everybody \u2014 including the new BKFC heavyweight champ.<\/p>\n
Selmani makes his long-awaited promotional debut this Saturday at BKFC Newcastle against Daniel Curtin. Prior to his WWE run as one-half of the Authors of Pain tag team, Selmani was an up-and-coming talent competing for the likes of Bellator and BAMMA, doing so before the age of 20, where he compiled a 4-2 pro MMA record.<\/p>\n
It was assumed Selmani would compete at KnuckleMania 6 earlier this year, but the promotion held off on his debut \u2013 which Selmani understood. In the main event, former UFC heavyweight champ Andrei Arlovski stopped Ben Rothwell to capture the BKFC title. Selmani watched the fight and wasn\u2019t surprised by how it went down.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it was a good fight,\u201d Selmani told MMA Fighting. \u201cIt went like I thought it was going to go. I know Ben Rothwell was dangerous with his right hand, but that\u2019s kind of what he counts on every fight, and Arlovski\u2019s more in and out, throwing the combinations. And yeah, if you just wait for one punch, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fighting. It\u2019s kind of easy, so it went like I thought it was going to go and yeah, kudos to Andrei Arlovski. After what he\u2019s been going through with his medical battles, his personal life, it\u2019s amazing seeing a legend in the fight game conquer a sport like this<\/p>\n
\u201cAll due respect, but if we face in the future, it won\u2019t go like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without a BKFC bout under his belt just yet, and with Arlovski carrying a massive experience advantage, Selmani was asked why things would be different if he shared the BKFC squared circle with \u201cThe Pitbull.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I don\u2019t fight like Ben Rothwell waiting for one punch,\u201d Selmani explained. \u201cI\u2019m a fighter that goes in there and in and out, throws combinations, hard, hard hitting, and, yeah, I\u2019m a completely different fighter than Ben Rothwell, so wouldn\u2019t go like this [other] fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since BKFC signed Selmani, no one has put it over more than the biggest start in UFC history, and current BKFC co-owner Conor McGregor.<\/p>\n
McGregor has made it a point to promote Selmani joining the promotion, and his upcoming fight with a series of social media posts and comments to make sure fans are ready for what they are about to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Albanian Psycho\u201d can\u2019t help but be thrilled with the type of hype he\u2019s getting from McGregor, and he hopes to make sure that it\u2019s not wasted when he faces Curtin this Saturday, who also makes his BKFC debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always good seeing the boss support you like this, and he knows what I\u2019m capable of,\u201d Selmani said. \u201cHe knows my fight career before WWE and he knows how I\u2019m training right now. He keeps an eye out and he keeps in check, so he knows what I\u2019m capable of and what I\u2019m doing in training camp, what I\u2019m doing to sparring partners, and he\u2019s very excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very excited and he\u2019s, at the end of the day, he\u2019s a businessman and he knows what he\u2019s got in his hands with me. So, yeah, it\u2019s normal that he\u2019s going to push it a little bit more than a different fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gzim Selmani, a former WWE and NXT tag team champion, is ready to make his mark on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533990,"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-533989","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\/533989","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=533989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}