Former Bellator interim bantamweight champ Raufeon Stots has been waiting all year to get back in the cage and get down to business. If all goes according to plan, the drought will end on October 19, with Stots (20-2) facing Marcos Breno at the PFL Battle of the Giants card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The pair were scheduled to face off in September at Bellator San Diego, only for the fight to be scratched on short notice. That led Stots to return to the training room.
“It just felt like a long, super-long training camp. I had got down to I think the last week, after I finished the last hard session, then I got the call that they were moving it,” Stots told Cageside Press in a recent exclusive interview. He’d add that when it comes to the extra time to train, “I know it’s going to be useful come fight time, because I’m going to be that much more ready for the fight. For my family, it just felt like a long time.”
When it comes to the reasoning for the postponement, Stots certainly has his theory, based at least in part on what the promotion told him.
“I literally think— I mean, I didn’t have no injuries or anything like that. From what I’m assuming I don’t think my opponent had injuries, because they just moved it a month later. I’m thinking, and what was told to me, was that they needed me for the Francis Ngannou card. So in my head, it’s like they wanted a Temu version of the Francis Ngannou fight with Renan Ferreira. So they’ve got an African and a Brazilian on the undercard to boost up the Pay-Per-View sales. That’s what I think it is. You’ve got your big giants battling, and you’ve got your little big giants battling.”
Temu version? “We’re the miniature version. Those guys are huge,” Stots noted.
Raufeon Stots is clearly upbeat heading into his first fight of 2024. However, he admitted that there’s been “a lot of waiting.”
“A lot of waiting and anticipating something would pop off. And I don’t hold PFL or Bellator to fault, just because I know there’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes that I can’t see,” stated Stots. “But I’ve been asking for fights and I’ve been chomping at the bit. Now that I’ve finally got one, I feel like a breath of fresh air can kind of be let out, because now I can actually get to express myself and kind of let loose on somebody.”
Stots has remained busy, meanwhile, inside and outside of the gym. He’s started up a trucking company, and entered into the ride share business as well. “As far as fighting, I’ve been training, helping other people train for camps. I’ve also been doing two-a-days without any fight scheduled. I’m just ready, I’m ready to get in there.”
Marcos Breno will be the man across from Stots come October 19. The Brazilian enters off a loss to Danny Sabatello, a foe Raufeon Stots himself is quite familiar with, holding two wins over the brash trash-talker. With that experience under his belt, Stots isn’t reading too much into Breno’s loss, noting Sabatello’s mental warfare.
As for Breno, “he comes to fight every time. He has power in both of his hands, I think he’s pretty well-rounded as a fighter. He’s young, but he’s not, really. He’s pretty experienced, he just doesn’t have a lot of Bellator or PFL experience,” outlined Stots. “So yeah, I think he’s going to come out with a chip on his shoulder, because he also hasn’t fought in a while. He hasn’t fought in like, I want to say over a year. So I understand what that chip on your shoulder is like, and then he also had the added pressure of losing his last fight. That puts a different type of fire inside of you. I definitely think he’s going to come out guns a blazing; me too, just because of my layoff and where I believe I should be, which is the title picture. So you’re going to get a fun fight because of that.”
Watch our full interview with PFL Battle of the Giants star Raufeon Stots above.
