Andrei Arlovski

Andrei Arlovski is married to Ludmila and has a son named Andrei.

He is a practicing Christian.

Andrei Arlovski was born on 4 February 1979, in Babruisk, Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (present day Belarus).

As a young child he was bullied and this experience encouraged him to pursue martial arts in order to deal with bullying. He started training himself with weight lifting at the age of 14.

Despite his initial interest in pursuing soccer, he went on to train in karate when he was 16 years old. He also developed interest in combat sports like kickboxing, judo and sambo.

In order to further nurture his interest in martial arts along with his passion for law enforcement, he enrolled at the Police Academy in Minsk. He later graduated from the academy.

In 1999, at the age of 20, Andrei Arlovski began his career in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) at the Mix Fight M-1 in St Petersburg, Russia but lost in his debut match in a knockout to Viacheslav Dastik. Not the one to be deterred easily, he made a comeback in 2000 at the European Championships and took the heavyweight crown.

In 2000, he made his debut at the ‘Ultimate Fight Championships’ with UFC 28. He lost in his early fights but later on defeated some prominent players, such as Ian Freeman and Vladimir Matyushenko. Victories against them propelled him into the UFC elite group.

In 2004, an accident that injured UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir led to the introduction of an interim heavyweight title. Andrei Arlovski went on to win the title and become the new UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion. He went on to defend this title in 2005 while fighting against Justin Eilers and Paul Buentello.

In 2006, in the rubber match that was fought between Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia at UFC 61, both players sustained major injuries. Though either fighter could not defeat through knockout, the unanimous decision of referees was in favour of Tim Sylvia.

His next MMA appearance was in December 2006 against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Márcio Cruz and he defeated Criz.

In 2006 he made his film debut with ‘8 of Diamonds’. A few years later, in 2009 he played the main negative character role in the feature film ‘Universal Soldier: Regeneration’..

In 2012, he was part of the cast of the final theatrical installment in the Universal Soldier series – ‘Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning’. He has also acted in television, appearing in an episode of the T.V series ‘Limitless’ in 2015. Apart from this, he has acted in MTV show ‘Bully Beatdown’.