Gegard Mousasi: The quiet legend of MMA who has won almost everything

Over almost two decades, Gegard Mousasi has won almost everything there is to win in MMA. He’s a softly-spoken legend.

Gegard Mousasi doesn't talk loudly, but when he does speak, real fight fans listen.

Watch Gegard Mousasi vs Austin Vanderford at Bellator 275 on the BBC Three TV Channel, 9pm, Friday 25 February. Available on BBC iPlayer afterwards.

Mousasi is the current and two-time Bellator middleweight champion. Some of those who have followed his career believe the 36-year-old is up there with the best middleweights of all time.

Yet, for whatever reason, he doesn't have the same broad profile as other fighters in his category. Perhaps it's because he talks less trash.

Iran-born Dutchman Mousasi is certainly one of the sport's pioneers in Europe.

After moving from kickboxing to MMA, he competed in iconic Japanese MMA competitions PRIDE and DREAM. Before the arrival of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), these were the alpha fight promotions, watched all over the world.

Mousasi became the first DREAM middleweight champion in 2008, defeating Brazilian great Ronaldo Souza. Over the course of his career, he's also been crowned DREAM light-heavyweight champion, Cage Warriors World middleweight champion and Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion.

On Friday, 25 February, at Bellator 275 in Dublin, Austin Vanderford will attempt to take Mousasi's middleweight belt.

Before that bout, we sat down for a chat with Mousasi to talk about how he's been preparing, what he's learned over the years and where he ranks himself amongst the greats.

It must be hard to talk about specific career highlights when you've had so many. Mousasi first signed with PRIDE FC in 2006 and has more than 50 fights under his belt – not to mention a number of professional kickboxing fights before that.

He tells us the championship fights meant a lot to him - particularly the early ones.

"The first belt that I won was in Cage Warriors. It was a smaller organisation, but I was walking around the streets with my belt underneath my clothes at four in the morning because I was so happy."

Perhaps one of the reasons that Mousasi may get overlooked in conversations about the greats is that he has never held a belt in the UFC – the premier MMA promotion.

However, that is not to say that he couldn't have. In 2017, Mousasi was on a five-fight winning streak in the UFC, having just knocked out Chris Weidman. It was his fourth knockout in a row – two against former UFC champions.

He could have been in line for a middleweight title bout against Michael Bisping. Instead, Georges St Pierre, returning from a four-year retirement, got the nod. The previous year, Mousasi had been scheduled to face Bisping, until he was replaced on the bill by Anderson Silva, who had just come off the back of two losses.

"I was very close to a title shot," Mousasi says, adding: "Anderson Silva wanted that fight too, so they gave it to him.

"Then Georges St Pierre came after retirement, going up a division. He wanted to fight Bisping because he knew he was a beatable opponent. He came, he won the title and then he went away."

Mousasi says he "understood that I wouldn't get my fair shot".

Feeling under-appreciated, Mousasi shocked many by leaving the UFC for Bellator.

"It was a better decision for me financially, but not just that," he says. "I have a much better relationship with Bellator than I had with UFC."

Mousasi believes he was passed over for those UFC title shots partly because he wasn't ready to play the media game.

"What I didn't understand back then is that it's entertainment first and then sport second," he says, adding: "I thought you just came, won and then you'd get a title shot, but it's not like that. You have to promote yourself and do trash talk."

Why not do that then?

"I was never such a big talker. If I suddenly started trash talking, people would say I was fake."

All these years after he went pro, we wondered whether Mousasi still felt the same way before a fight.

"No – I’m older!" he tells us, adding: "I have carpal tunnel syndrome now, where my hands fall asleep. I sleep less, my body hurts more, I need more rest. It's not the same anymore, but, still, I'm not that old!"

Getting old isn't all bad, Mousasi says.

"When I was younger, I was a lot hungrier maybe, but I'm a lot wiser now. As you get older, you become more like a fox. You choose when to strike. When you're younger, you just go!"

The secret to his longevity?

"You need luck, you need good people around you… you have to have a body that's not very sensitive to injury.

"I see a lot of guys rise very high and then suddenly they're gone. I always get back stronger after a loss. I never had two losses in a run. Sometimes I would mess up, but those defeats I had, I've also got wins over those guys. I always felt like I could compete with the very best and win."

Mousasi's experience could pay against relative newcomer Vandeford, who has a professional record of 11 wins and 0 losses and, until fairly recently, was more well known known as the husband of UFC fighter and model Paige VanZant.

However, Mousasi isn't underestimating his opponent. Vanderford, 31, is the top-ranked Bellator middleweight. He has also spent years competing as a professional wrestler.

"He's had maybe 200 wrestling matches – that's also experience," Mousasi tells us, adding: "He's a well-deserved opponent. He's undefeated, so he's going to test me."

On his approach to the fight, Mousasi is pretty clear.

"My opponent wants to take me down," he tells us. "He'll want to hold me and do some ground and pound. If I take that weapon away from him, he;'ll be in a world of trouble."

Finally, we wanted to know where this veteran, who always seems to speak pragmatically and avoids hype, ranks himself amongst the greats in terms of middleweights?

"I never said I'm the best middleweight, because I never felt that way, but, for this fight, I feel like I'm the best middleweight," Mousasi tells us.

"I could easily fight Robert Whittaker or Israel Adesanya. I think those are the number one and two guys and I definitely feel I belong there."

Watch Gegard Mousasi vs Austin Vanderford at Bellator 275 on the BBC Three TV Channel, 9pm, Friday 25 February. Available on BBC iPlayer afterwards.