British-Iranian lightweight Kamal Shalorus will miss the promotion that gave him his big break in mixed martial arts."Honestly, I love WEC," Shalorus recently told MMAFighting.com. "WEC is kind of like my home and I know UFC and WEC [will be] coming together. I'm going to miss the WEC."
While the WEC and UFC are within the same family and by default, share much in common, there will still be something lost once the WEC-UFC merger is completed.
"It's such a great organization, but at the end, the WEC and the UFC are the same, so I'm so super excited if I could get inside the UFC," he continued. "Yeah, I'm super excited, but I feel like I wish WEC were there too, you know?"
At WEC 53 on Thursday, Shalorus will meet a resurging Bart Palaszewski, who has won three straight WEC fights, one of which came against current title challenger Anthony Pettis. Meanwhile, Shalorus has two wins with the WEC and is coming off a split draw against former titleholder Jamie Varner.
Stylistically, Shalorus says he welcomes the aggressiveness of Palaszewski, something Shalorus has also gained a reputation for in the WEC. Although Shalorus is a lifelong and a decorated wrestler, the impression he's made in the WEC has been his willingness to strike.
Shalorus, who has been training his boxing and kickboxing for three to four years now, says he will follow the fight wherever it ends up to the point that he claims he doesn't follow a concrete gameplan.
"You know and everybody know, anywhere people go, I go there," Shalorus said. "I'm not that kind of person, make a gameplan, I have to take him down, all blah blah, I just want to fight. I'm here to fight."
Shalorus recently opened his own gym, the Arete Training Center in Austin, Texas and it's a move made to simplify his training camps. In addition to having his own mat space to accommodate as many training partners as he wants, Shalorus says he also wants to give back to the community with his knowledge.
"I'm training five to six hours a day and I try to make my own training center and then do something better for the young kids. I want to share my skill with other people too. That's why I decided to make my own training camp."
As someone proud to be a fighter under the WEC brand, Shalorus is taking an us-against-them attitude towards the upcoming crossover fights when the merger enters into full effect. Not necessarily to say the one is better than the other, but to show the two brands are on the same level.
"We're going to show the world the WEC fighters are as tough as the UFC," Shalorus said. "There is no difference. We are ready for a big battle. We're going to show WEC is like UFC. We're going to go to big war and we're going to show all WEC fans and UFC fans who we are."
Like everyone else on the WEC 53 card, Shalorus will be presenting his own case for a run in the WEC and while Shalorus claims he doesn't know for sure if he'll land in the UFC following this fight, he did make a prediction on the outcome of the fight.
"I'd love to be in the UFC. That's my dream too," Shalorus said. "We'll see. There is no losing, I'm going to win."
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