Tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET on Spike TV Bellator 140 will get underway with Andrey Koreshkov (17-1-0) challenging Douglas Lima (26-5-0) for the Bellator welterweight championship at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. Fans can live stream Bellator 140 for free by clicking this link.

Koreshkov is coming off a layoff of a full year, a daunting ordeal for a fighter who fought 18 times professionally by the time he was 23.

"Obviously it was frustrating at times," Korsehkov said. "But after a while, I began to look at it differently. I wasn't able to spar obviously, but I was still training and doing cardio work. And it made me focus on the mental aspect of the game, on thinking about how I can improve as a fighter and how to apply that to my training when I was ready to go again.

"So between that and the time to rest up and heal up, I think all in all, in an unusual way it's helped make me a better fighter."

Koreshkov is an excellent striker, racking up 59 percent of his wins by way of knockout. Lima can strike as well, but utilizes submissions too.. Only three of Lima's 26 wins have gone the distance, and he hopes that his own injury issues are behind him so he can stake his claim as one of the best fighters the sport of mixed martial arts has to offer.

"Bring me the best guy (at 170). I'll fight him, and I believe in myself I can beat him. I can beat anybody. I'm just very confident in my training. We'll see, but I think we're really solid, man. Bellator has got a really deep welterweight division, and people are going to see," Lima said.

Prediction: Lima def. Koreshkov by TKO (Round 3)