Early Career
As a teenager, Alexander did skiing and Greco-Roman wrestling. At the age of 15, Shlemenko seriously started to train ARB, which is the Russian abbreviation for "army hand-to-hand combat". He competed in many regional and national tournaments in ARB, and got to the highest sport level by reaching the title of "master of sports". After watching a professional pancration tournament, Shlemenko immediately wanted to try it out. Shortly after that, he made his professional MMA-debut in 2004 at the age of 20 in his hometown Omsk, winning by TKO.
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