THACKERVILLE, Okla. – With his strong wrestling background, [autotag]Kyle Crutchmer[/autotag] is happy to draw comparisons to his teammates – but not necessarily to their fighting styles.

Crutchmer (5-0 MMA, 1-0 BMMA), who was a two-time NCAA All-American wrestler at Oklahoma State University, has a strong grappling background like former two-division UFC champion [autotag]Daniel Cormier[/autotag] and UFC lightweight champ [autotag]Khabib Nurmagomedov[/autotag], his teammates at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif.

Crutchmer improved to 5-0 Friday at Bellator 233 in his promotional debut with a unanimous decision win over Robert Gidron. He used his superior wrestling to control the fight and showed off some of his striking, too.

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But with inevitable comparisons to his accomplished wrestling teammates at AKA, Crutchmer is more concerned with making similar paydays down the line.

“I don’t know how many people knock dudes down with spinning back fists, but I threw that (expletive) today – it landed, it knocked him down, so I’ve got a little bit different style from (them),” Crutchmer told MMA Junkie. “But listen, man, at the end of the day, if my bank account says what ‘D.C.’ and Khabib’s say – man, you can compare me to whoever you want to compare me to.”

His opponent, Gidron, stepped in on short notice for the fight. But the natural middleweight missed weight for the 170-pound bout by nearly five pounds. While Crutchmer is accustomed to being the smaller opponent, he says Gidron had an apparent size difference, a challenge he was able to overcome.

“My wrestling kind of speaks for itself,” Crutchmer said. “I think I would be dumb to not at least attempt it in the first, to see how hard or how easy it would be. Man, that guy was big. People don’t realize – he missed weight by five pounds. He’s never fought at (1)70, I don’t think, so he had some height on me, too. So some of those things, I was trying to get to. It took a lot more than people could see.”

And there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to accept the fight regardless, as he looks to begin his ascent in the Bellator 170-pound rankings.

“I’m in this to prove I’m the baddest mother(expletive) in the world, and if I’m turning down fights or I’m saying no to somebody, then why am I doing this?” Crutchmer said. “I knew it was going to be hard. You could see it, how big he was, and that does play a factor in fights. I had no hesitation. I told our coaches, ‘I’ll get paid a little bit more and we’ll roll with it.'”