Uncasville, CT — You’d be forgiven for betting against John de Jesus at Bellator 244. To start the night, the featherweight, in a catchweight fight with Ukraine’s Vladyslav Parubchenko, was 12-8. His opponent was 16-1.
He was kind of an underdog.
“Not kinda. The underdog,” de Jesus corrected, speaking to Cageside Press post-fight. “You don’t got to sugarcoat it.”
Okay. de Jesus was the underdog. But he also pulled off the upset, fighting to a unanimous decision victory that included a slick flying knee.
“I’ve been working on that for months. I’ve been catching everybody with it,” de Jesus, now 13-8 following the win, admitted. “Right before I came out, I watched that MVP-Cyborg fight. I was like ‘my flying knee’s going to look something like that.’ And there it is.”
This flying knee by @JohnDeJesusMMA landed FLUSH 😰
(via @BellatorMMA) pic.twitter.com/ZWUI8h7Kzr
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 22, 2020
There it is indeed. On the feeling of winning his first Bellator MMA fight, de Jesus said that “I’m to the moon right now. But everybody down in Pittsburgh knows what I’m about. That 12-8 record is bull. You can look at my paperwork all day long. You’ll be very confused once you see me in the cage.”
That’s thanks in part, he added, to moving to Pittsburgh. “The missing piece was my mental game and my wrestling game,” he admitted. While he’s still working on his wrestling, working with The Mat Factory and Isaac Greeley, among others, has helped. “I’m pushing that wrestling all day long, and it’s just getting better.”
Opponents had better watch out for that flying knee as well.
Watch the full Bellator 244 post-fight press conference with John de Jesus above.
