5 pro-wrestlers who you didn't realise fought in MMA
The worlds of pro-wrestling and MMA have always been intrinsically linked – no matter how much hardcore fans of both sports might deny it – and for every piece of theatre that MMA promotions lift from wrestling, so too there’s a new submission move or unique finish that wrestling steals from MMA.
With such a great amount of crossover, it’s no surprise that athletes have crossed from one sport to the other on plenty of occasions. Everyone knows about the big mainstream stars who found success in MMA and pro-wrestling – Brock Lesnar, Ken Shamrock, Ronda Rousey, and more recently, CM Punk and Shayna Baszler – but there are more crossovers than fans of both might actually realise.
Here are 5 pro-wrestlers who you might not have realised fought in MMA.
#5 Rezar
WWE fans haven’t been told a lot about the background of current tag team stars ‘Rezar’ and ‘Akam’, better known as the Authors of Pain. The two men are usually portrayed as unthinking wrecking machines that are almost interchangeable in the ring, but in fact, while Akam – real name Sunny Dhinsa – went into pro-wrestling following an amateur wrestling career, Rezar – real name Gzim Selmani – actually had quite an accomplished MMA career prior to his WWE days.
Selmani, an ethnic Kosovo Albanian, grew up in an MMA hotbed – the Netherlands – and trained in kickboxing and judo as a child before taking up MMA at the age of 15. Eventually fighting out of the famed Golden Glory team – once home to the likes of Alistair Overeem and Gilbert Yvel – Silmani began fighting as an amateur in 2012 before quickly turning professional later that year.
By 2014 he’d put together a solid 6-1 record as a Heavyweight, including a submission victory over British UFC veteran Oli Thompson. That was enough to earn him a chance in the world’s second-biggest MMA promotion, Bellator, but his lone fight there didn’t end well – he was TKO’d by Daniel Gallemore in the second round.
That would be his last professional fight, as he was signed by WWE in early 2015 and has been there since. But in online lists of “real tough guys” in pro-wrestling – common for years – Silmani definitely deserves a spot.