Season ten lightweight tournament winner and leg lock specialist Marcin Held will be back in the cage on Friday as he will look for his sixth straight victory when he faces Alexander “Tiger” Sarnavskiy at Bellator 136.
Held (20-3) won the season ten tournament by defeating Rodrigo Cavalheiro, Derek Anderson, and Patricky Pitbull last year.
By winning that tournament, it secured his shot for the lightweight title, but Dave Jansen was already in line waiting for a title shot. Held did not want to wait and told Bellator he wanted to take a fight.
“I did not want to wait for the title shot,” Held told The MMA Report. “I want to fight and I am still a young fighter. I want to fight as often as I can. I asked Bellator for another fight and they gave me this fight against Alexander Saranvskiy. I have this fight and after that, I will fight for the belt. Winning the tournament is guaranteeing a title shot so I think nothing has changed in this. Of course, it will be better for me to win this fight.”
His training camp for the tournament final against Pitbull was in the United States at Rofusport. While Held talked about continuing his training at the Milwaukee based gym before that fight, he returned to Poland to prepare for Sarnavskiy.
“I was in the United States for two weeks and then I had to move my training camp to Poland because of my personal stuff. I train in Poland now and I have really good sparring partners here so everything is good. I think it’s the same or even better than the United States.”
A cliché you always hear in mixed martial arts is “this is the toughest fight of my career.” Why does Held believe this is the toughest fight of his career? Simply put, just look at the career of Saranvskiy.
“He is a really good fighter. He has 30 wins and just 2 losses. When he lost, it was against really good fighters. One with [Rich] Clementi and the second one against the champion [Will Brooks]. He is really strong. His standing is really good.”
Held is confident heading into the fight and when asked on how he will win this fight. He was quick and to the point. He is going to win this fight by stoppage.
“I will try to finish this fight on the ground.”