(Arlovski tries for the Dan Severn, sweat-soaked-grey-t-shirt look.)

Following his knockout loss to Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction: Day of Reckoning, Andrei Arlovski has signed with Golden Boy Promotions and will begin his career as a boxer, reports FightHype.com.  

You may recall that Arlovski’s trainer, Freddie Roach, said he’d like to see Arlovski take on heavyweight boxing champ Nikolai Valuev if he was victorious against Fedor.  Of course, he wasn’t, so maybe Valuev won’t be Arlovski’s first opponent, which is probably just as well.  But whoever he does face in the boxing ring, at least he won’t be tempted to try another flying knee.

If you’re Arlovski this move makes perfect sense right now.  Having lost to Fedor, there’s no immediately obvious opponent for him outside the UFC ranks.  He’s already beaten Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson, Josh Barnett has the next shot at Fedor (though it won’t happen until the summer, at the earliest), so why not put on some bigger gloves and find out whether Roach really knows a boxing diamond in the rough when he sees it?

The upside for MMA fans is we get to see someone from our world match his skills against a real boxer.  We’ve all heard about how superior their striking is for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to find out the old-fashioned way?  Not to mention, this could actually get people to care about boxing’s heavyweight division again, at least for a little while.