Improving to 8-0 at Bellator 257 was New Zealand’s Jay Jay Wilson — and he made a statement in the process.
Wilson dominated Pedro Carvalho on the ground in the opening round, even while fighting off his back. In the second round, Wilson rocked his opponent, a former title challenger who had faced Patricio Pitbull in the featherweight grand prix. Jay Jay sealed the deal by TKO.
“I think that solidifies my position in the featherweight division,” Wilson told media outlets including Cageside Press following the bout. “I believe I should be in line for the title.”
To bolster his case, Wilson pointed out that “he just fought the champ, and I went out there and I put on a dominant, dominant performance.”
That he did. The only negative was, Wilson missed weight for the bout. While it was by less than a pound, it doesn’t help his title fight argument. Especially when it was the second miss in three fights for Wilson. However, he pointed to the short-notice nature of the fight with Carvalho as the culprit.
“If I had a couple more weeks, I would have been able to get my weight lower,” said Wilson. And even having said that, he intends to fine-tune the weight cutting process. “That’s an issue we will definitely address.”
The featherweight division is red-hot right now, and Wilson will likely have some competition in the title fight department, something he seems to recognize. “I think after the AJ McKee and [Patricio] Pitbull fight, we’ll probably have a good time frame on when the title is going to come available,” Wilson told Cageside Press post-fight. “During that process, I’d like to take on the number one contender, and in my book that’s probably Adam Borics, so I’ll definitely be able to line up a fight with him.”
On how he feels that fight would go, Wilson said simply that “[Borics] is a very tough fighter. We just got done with Pedro Carvalho, so I’ll be going back to my camp, and we’ll come up with a plan to put on a dominant performance against him — so I can definitely solidify my title position.”
Watch the full Bellator 257 post-fight press scrum with Jay Jay Wilson above.
