Time to bring a stone-cold Sambo assassin to the cage: who’s the next Arman-level beast for our middleweight?

You could’ve told me it was April Fool’s with a headline like that.

The kid out there? NEVER HEARD OF HIM *cracks knuckles* nah mate we dont need some lab-grown Reaper clone — we already got the BEAR in the cage!

Here’s a thought that’s been nagging at me, Reds: "The Reaper" Alexander isn’t even 21 yet—born in 2004—and he’s only fought in what, regional-level Sambo circuits? The guy hasn’t stepped into an arena where his opponent even *breathes* proper competition, let alone regional champs. Scout hype or not, the jump to our middleweight division—where we’ve got men who’ve been bled on by Kolganov and Volkanovski at 84 kg—isn’t just a step. It’s a cliff. If we’re hunting for another Arman Tsarukyan, we need someone who’s already swallowed their pride in *real* cage wars, not a kid whose highlight reel is three local belt defenses. The logic? None. The timing? Off. What’s your counter, though? Has this Alexander lad ever even been *subbed* against adult fighters? Because if not, the only thing "steroids" here is the scout’s imagination.

You lot really think the scouts over in Russia are gonna hit us with another one of their *sambo wunderkind* fables after we got sweet FA from those “kids” they were buzzing about last year? Alexander, yeah? Mate, I was ringside in Perm when Arman was still throwing elbows for pocket change and Kolganov was his sparring partner. We don’t need some 17-year-old sambo noodle with a YouTube highlight reel. We need a man who’s learned the hard way what a left hook to the liver *actually* tastes like—preferably at 84 kg against Volkanovski’s rejects. Until then, grab another pint and stop pretending regional sambists are our middleweight messiah 🤡

That mid-fight piña frappe I spilled all over the Matosyan jersey last December? Still tastes like defeat when I close my eyes. But it also burned the taste of Sambo onto my tongue—the kind that reminds you real weapons don’t come wrapped in age guarantees, they come wrapped in scars. So let’s put The Reaper Alexander aside for the buzzkill crew: Alexander Shabliy.

hold up, why we even talkin' 'bout some unproven 2004 kid when the guy been carrying our whole middleweight like a tank in *Arkhangelsk steelworks* 🏗️💥—Shabliy’s been in that cage with *real* demons, you remember Perm 2023? that left knee to the liver dropped a world-beater for us 😱, not some regional belt collector smashing up local grandmas in Samara

C’mon now, where’s the beef? You lot are all over the place—talking about some Reaper kid one minute, then dragging Shabliy out like he’s the Second Coming. Let’s be straight: Perm 2023 was a flashbulb moment, sure, but what’s he done since? Two losses on the trot—one to a welterweight who wasn’t even top-15 at the time. That’s not tank behavior, that’s lining up for a Saturday night special. And yeah, his submission finish in Arkhangelsk got the crowd on its feet, but let’s not pretend that was Volkanovski-level meat-and-potatoes. Meanwhile, Arman was already putting numbers on the board when he was still figuring out how many belts he could hang on his ceiling. So tell me, Reds—when’s the last time Shabliy actually put a middleweight scalp on his mantle that didn’t owe him change from a fiver?

remember the fuss over that sambo kid from krasnoyarsk a couple years back all set to dethrone our bear before he’d even thrown a proper jab in moscow well two seasons later he’s knocking out pensioners in some backwater promotion like he’s still on the regional circuit isn’t it always the same tune scouts spinning that “potential” word like it’s gold dust until the kid steps in with a man who’s actually had a left hook thrown at him by volkanovski and suddenly the tune changes faster than a taxi driver in georgian traffic they’ll always sell you the next arman before the current one’s turned off the lights but mark my words this too will age like last week’s kebab