Gegard Mousasi has the perspective the of an old man even though he’s only 32-years-old. That’s because he has 50 professional mixed martial arts fights under his belt. He’ll make it 51 on Friday in his Bellator debut against Alexander Shlemenko (56-9-0), one of the few men who has more fights than Mousasi.

That’s where the similarities end. Mousasi (46-6-2) is one of the very best middleweights in the world and has won seven of his past eight fights in the UFC’s stacked middleweight division. Before leaving the UFC this spring, there was a very compelling case to be made that he deserved a title shot against UFC champion Michael Bisping.

Shlemenko, meanwhile, isn’t anywhere near the top ten, and might not even be in the top 20. He has won five fights in a row, but that was against Bellator’s middleweight division, which isn’t exactly bursting at the seams with talent.

Given Shlemenko’s underdog status, he’s almost a 5-to-1 underdog at many sportsbooks, the only reason to watch the fight is to catch a glimpse of Mousasi — a man who has seen it all.

Mousasi is a four-time world champion in old-school fight promotions like DREAM and Strikeforce. He entered his prime when Strikeforce was purchased by the UFC. At the time, Anderson Silva was the reigning, 10-time defending middleweight champion and Mousasi was part of the next generation of stars who would eventually populate one of the most talented divisions in UFC history. From Americans Chris Weidman and Luke Rockhold to Brazilian Jacare Souza and Cuban Yoel Romero, the division is a murderer’s row and that isn’t even including champion Michael Bisping, interim champ Robert Whittaker, or the still dangerous 42-year-old Silva.

Having too many good fighters actually became a problem for the UFC because tons of guys could legitimately claim that they deserved a title shot. Mousasi was one of those men.

“As a fighter, you want fair treatment,” Mousasi told the Post. “I would have never gotten my shot. I would have gone through Jacare [Souza], Luke Rockhold, and then maybe Whittaker and then Bisping the champ.

“I have freedom, everything is a lot easier [in Bellator]. Less stress, I feel it, I feel good,” he says with a laugh. “In Bellator, I feel like I can grow. As the fighters grow, I know the company will grow. You feel like a part of the company.”

Fighting in a relatively small promotion means that Mousasi, for the first time in years, controls his destiny. If he beats Shlemenko, he’ll get a title shot against Rafael Carvalho and if he wins that fight he’ll either move up to light heavyweight and challenge fellow UFC alum Ryan Bader for the title or he’ll maybe even get a super fight against Rory MacDonald. MacDonald is the biggest star to make the jump from the UFC to Bellator and will fight Douglas Lima for the Bellator welterweight title in January.

MacDonald and Mousasi have a lot in common. They’ve both been fighting professionally for more than a decade, they both let their fighting do the talking and they both got lost in the shuffle after the UFC’s $4 billion sale to WME-IMG in 2016.

The much-talked-about sale ushered in the era of so-called “super” or “money” fights, which had a direct effect on Mousasi’s career. Bisping has not defended his UFC belt in over a year and when he does defend it, at UFC 217 in Madison Square Garden on Nov. 4, he’ll be fighting Georges St. Pierre. GSP is one of the greatest fighters of all time and he got to jump the middleweight line, past guys like Mousasi, because he has the name recognition that earns pay-per-view buys.

It’ a situation that has frustrated many of the world’s top middleweights and Mousasi points to the corporatization of the UFC as the root of the problem.

“It’s an individual sport,” he explains. “The way its supposed to be is the fighters and then the brand. Scott Coker, [the president of Bellator], he’s worked in Japan with the K1 fighters, and the fighters were kings. It was them and then the organization’s name.

“The UFC is first, and then the fighters.”

When that’s the setup, Mousasi says, fighters suffer the consequences. As proof he points to the UFC’s deal with Reebok which saw many fighters lose money because they couldn’t go out and find their own sponsors. Worse still, it took away one of the most entertaining parts of MMA: the individuality of it all.

“The UFC has too many rules, it doesn’t make it better. Now everyone is dressed ugly, in Reebok, it’s not that appealing,” Mousasi says.

Bellator doesn’t have that problem at all. It is much closer to Mousasi’s former Strikeforce stomping grounds.

“If you want to come in on an elephant, come in on an elephant,” he says, only half joking. “It makes the fighter who he is, it brings characters.”

Ironically, Mousasi knows that isn’t his game.

“I cannot come and suddenly put on a persona,” Mousasi says. “Like, I cannot be Mike Tyson. When you saw him it was raw, it was intense, ‘I want to hurt you.’ But now everybody tries it.

“I don’t enjoy that. It’s not real.”