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DREAM Middleweight Champ Gegard Mousasi To Move Up In Weight: “I May Fight The Winner Of Babalu vs. Sokoudjou”

Gegard "Young Vagabond" Mousasi recently participated in DREAM's first middleweight tournament.  After attaining his 11th consecutive win, he then achieved the DREAM middleweight title.  He has proven to be one of the most dangerous men at 185 with his ability to finish fights either TKO or submission in the first or second round. 

Mousasi holds a record of 24-2-1 with wins over popular MMA superstars including Melvin Manhoef, Ronaldo Souza, Denis Kang, Evangelista "Cybor" Santos and many more.  At only 23 years of age, Mousasi plans to move from the middleweight division and into the light heavyweight division.  He even indicated a possible move to the the heavyweight class later on in his career. 

The young Armenian has 2 fights remaining in his DREAM contract, but has also been talking to Affliction for a possible future fight-contract.  If a deal is signed, he may very well be next in to take on the winner of Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou.  The battle between Babalu and Sokoudjou is scheduled to take place this upcoming Saturday night at the Affliction 2: "Day of Reckoning" event.  He'll be attending the event to observe the fight, but he'll also be there to support his teammate Fedor Emelianenko who headlines the main event against Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski.

Here's the snip from Mousasi (props to mmauniverse.com):


"I'm moving up a division so I'm now at 216, 217 pounds…
I'm going to train a little bit more with weights and
I'm aiming for 235 eventually. If I can make the weight well I may go
straight to heavyweight but I think first the smartest thing to do is
go to light heavyweight and then to heavyweight…
To me the next challenge is to move up a division. It's
not because I don't see middleweight as a challenge but because my
body's getting bigger. I always came down, came down and because of my
age my body's getting bigger and bigger. It's something that I needed
to do. I think the timing is good to go up…
I may fight the winner of Babalu vs. Sokoudjou but I don't know for sure…It's eventually up to Affliction and M-1 who they want
me to fight. It's a tough division because every guy is explosive,
every guy is fast and has good strength. It's a tough division and
there's a lot of good names…
It's not my goal to be the best light heavyweight in the world…Something I've always wanted is to be a heavyweight. I
plan, over one year maybe two years, to build to heavyweight. I can get
to 106 or 108 kilos (233-238lbs.).  I think one of the reasons I will
do well in heavyweight is if I can keep the speed, explosiveness and
movement of a middleweight it will make it hard for other heavyweights
to fight against me…
I really want to fight against the tall heavy guys
because people think 'Oh, he's too much bigger', stuff like that. So
that motivates me. If you're mentally prepared, I don't think size
matters. If you look, Mike Tyson was a small guy, Fedor is a small guy,
and look at Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya, he was much smaller but it didn't
matter so I look at that and say to myself that if these guys can do
it, maybe I can do it also."
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