Andrei Arlovski Ready to Return To The Cage Following Knockout Loss

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On Saturday February 12th, former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski faced Sergei Kharitonov in a quarterfinal bout of the Strikeforce World Grand Prix Heavyweight Tournament. There were two big questions regarding Arlovski as he entered the fight.

The first was, after three straight losses, one by knockout, one by TKO and one by decision, could Arlovski handle an opponent that pushed the action to him? The second question was simply, can Arlovski's chin take a big shot?

The answer to both questions proved to be no, as Kharitonov knocked Arlovski out at the 2:49 mark of the first round.

Arlovski remains a huge fan favorite despite losing four in a row after the Kharitonov defeat. Perhaps knowing that he is still a drawing fighter, he's not quite ready to throw in the towel and retire from mixed martial arts.

According to Strikeforce matchmaker Rich Chou, “He still wants to fight. His manager came up to us immediately after the fight and said, ‘He’s not done, he want’s to get right back in there as soon as possible," Chou told BJPenn.com "We’ll see, I think the fire’s still there.”

Despite his 0-3 Strikeforce record the promotion knows that Arlovski can still bring fans to any MMA card he appears on. With that fact in mind, Chou implied Arlovski's next opponent may be a step down in quality, "He’s been fighting really tough guys lately, all his recent losses are against top level competition, so we’ll have to have some more discussions with him and see what happens.”

Arlovski's overall MMA record stands at 15-9.

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