The former Bellator champion agrees with the widespread opinion that the career of the Russian heavyweight has now been put to rest.
“He didn’t show anything at all, it’s a pity for him. I thought he would now take the Englishman away, at the weigh-in he was so confident. Maybe for the first time in their lives, the audience was so opposed to Sasha. Maybe it somehow knocked him down, broke him, because I don’t remember that he had such fights in his career, when there was such a hard buzz. He also accelerates for a long time, the opponent took advantage of this. Before Sasha had time to accelerate, Aspinall outsmarted him in every aspect.
"Are you saying his career is over? This is true. I will now speak about him both harshly and not harshly. Sasha always rode underestimated. Most often, people underestimated him, they thought: well, what's wrong, a thin guy, tall, nothing special, now let's go out and break him. They broke, they broke - but he does not break. And now Sasha has recovered, began to smile, became self-confident. People began to prepare more for it. To return, you need to change something. Maybe the mood," Shlemenko said in an interview on Alexander Lyutikov's YouTube channel.