The well-versed Russian will once again find himself in the spotlight when he takes on Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Chance Rencountre in the Bellator 274 co-main event on Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Koreshkov enters the cage on the heels of back-to-back wins. He last competed at Bellator 264, where he laid claim to a unanimous decision over American Top Team’s Sabah Homasi on Aug. 13.
As Koreshkov draws out his battleplan for his forthcoming encounter with Rencountre, here are five things you might not know about him:
1. He arms himself with finely tuned weaponry.
Koreshkov holds the Master of Sports designation in ARB, a form of hand-to-hand combat that was developed by the military in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It mirrors combat sambo in many regards, although competitions take place on a slightly smaller mat.
2. An accomplished champion discipled him.
The 31-year-old Omsk, Russia, native trains under former Bellator MMA middleweight champion and onetime M-1 Global middleweight grand prix winner Alexander Shlemenko. “Storm” owns a 12-5 record with one no contest across 18 appearances in Bellator, but he has not competed in the company for more than three years.
3. He enjoyed a run at the top.
Koreshkov remains one of only six men who have captured the undisputed Bellator welterweight championship. The others: Lyman Good, Ben Askren, Douglas Lima, Rory MacDonald and Yaroslav Amosov. Koreshkov’s reign covered 482 days and included one successful title defense, as he took a five-round unanimous decision from Benson Henderson in the Bellator 153 main event on April 22, 2016.
4. Consistency steadies his stock.
The Shlemenko protégé has never suffered back-to-back setbacks during his 28 professional bouts. Koreshkov has followed each of his four losses—Askren, Lima (twice) and Lorenz Larkin were the perpetrators—with at least one victory. He rattled off 13 consecutive wins to start his career.
5. Judges admire his work.
Koreshkov has gone the distance nine times and owns a stellar 8-1 record in those appearances. The lone outlier? A split decision defeat to the aforementioned Larkin in the Bellator 229 headliner in October 2019. All eight of Koreshkov’s decision wins are of the unanimous variety.