Shabliy (22-3) hasn’t lost a fight since 2016, and on Friday at Bellator 282, put away ex-champ Brent Primus with a second round TKO.

“This is a big fight for me. He’s last champion, I’m next champion,” Shabliy exclaimed following the fight. “I’m happy.”

How ready? Shabliy is willing to step up if Sidney Outlaw is injured in his title fight with Patricky Pitbull in July. “I am ready. Next month, title shot, Pitbull-Sidney. Maybe a Sidney injury, I’m next, I’m ready [to step in] next,” suggested Shabliy.

On the Primus front, Shabliy said backstage at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT that “Brent’s a good fighter, world [class] fighter. He’s [the] last champion. Nothing but respect for Brent.”

That might come as a surprise to those who heard Shabliy claim after his last fight that Primus had been avoiding him. But, he said Friday, he’s not looking to “kill with my opinions.”

“This is sport, not life. I’m respectful to all my opponents,” Shabliy stated. “All these fighters, all my opponents are the same like I am. All they do, they just train and fight to make a living for their life, for their families. I never wish anything, I don’t have bad intentions for the fighters, but this is the sport, you walk into the cage and you have to win.”

Beyond the title shot, there’s really nothing that seems to have Alexander Shabliy’s attention right now.

“Honestly I have no other names in the top of the division. The only goal I see is the champion, and I want to fight with the champion. If for some reason they’re going to give me someone else, it doesn’t matter. I don’t see any competition for me.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight media scrum with Alexander Shabliy above. More coverage can be found below.

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“100%. Keep that f*cker at 100,” Ward (16-6) exclaimed back stage at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville CT, a short while after his second-round TKO of Kassius Kayne.

Ward is now 2-0 since returning to MMA earlier this year, after battling addiction and nearly losing his fighting career because of it.

There were bright spots in the win— the finish, most certainly. There were also areas of concern for Ward.

“I was a little gassed at the end of that first round, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t know what that was all about, but I don’t like that,” he admitted. “I should have been able to rip that f*cking arm-bar back. I was tired, dude. I hate getting tired.”

The fatigue might just stem from the fact that since his return, Ward hasn’t exactly been a full-time fighter.

“I do this part time. I really do. That’s no bullsh*t,” Ward noted. “Even the commentators, when I met with them the other day, they’re like ‘we heard you haven’t been training. We heard you haven’t been f*cking training.'”

Ward is in a carpenter’s union outside of fighting, specializing in deep foundations and dock building, among other areas. He has a pension waiting for him, something fighting doesn’t offer.

“I only train about two, maybe three days a week. If I’m going to step up in competition, I’ve got to train more. I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with work,” he explained. “Because I’m not going to be able to fight the next-level guys with performances like that.”

“Yeah, I can f*cking throw bombs with the best of ’em, I can punch with the best of ’em, power wise. But what happens with a f*cking kid like Logan Storley, who just got done fighting two twenty-five minute f*cking fights?” Ward questioned. “That kid will probably be wearing me down, unless I finish him first, but who knows.”

The decision will not be an easy one. Ward knows that much. “Big. That’s like a life-changing choice.” For now though, it’s back to work for Brennan Ward. “Work on Monday. Vacation’s over.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Brennan Ward above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

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The Russian standout (19-2) was neck-and-neck with opponent Enrique Barzola, a former Ultimate Fighter winner, before catching the Peruvian in a guillotine choke in round four.

“The most important thing for me was to get back onto the winning track,” Magomedov told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “It doesn’t matter if it was the grand prix or any other tournament, what kind of fight [was] in front of me. If I keep winning, everything’s going to be ahead for me.”

Magomedov’s last fight, a decision loss against Raufeon Stots, appears to have been particularly troublesome for him.

“The very last thing I like, and maybe I hate in this sport is to lose. Every time when I was thinking I was going to lose, I was thinking either somebody’s going to knock me out completely, or going choke me out,” he stated. “I never thought I was going to lose with a decision, and this was really harmful to me.”

That had him expecting a difficult fight on Saturday, which is exactly what he found until the jump guillotine in the fourth. “I knew that the guy is super tough, and it’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be an easy fight,” said Magomedov, adding that “even though I won, I did a lot of mistakes in this fight, and still there are a lot of things that I have to learn.”

He’ll have some time to tweak his game ahead of the grand prix semifinals, where he’ll face former title challenger Patchy Mix.

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Magomed Magomedov above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

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Mota (13-3) picked up a unanimous decision win over #9-ranked lightweight Dan Moret at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT on Friday. “Guys, it’s war. Today, I give my best. I feel great right now,” he told media outlets including Cageside Press following the bout, adding that “Dan Moret is a tough guy.”

Having snapped a two-fight skid, Mota added that he hopes to continue fighting for the organization.

“This is very important for me, because it’s my last fight on my contract with Bellator,” Mota revealed. “I want to win more fights, I want to sign [for] more fights. This is very important for me. Right now, I’ve put my name in the top 10 in the rankings. This is a very important fight in my life.”

Moving forward, Brazil’s Mota, who trains alongside former UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira, wants to continue facing ranked foes.

“Right now, I want to put my name in the top 10. I’m top 10 right now, because Dan Moret is nine,” said Mota. “I [beat] him, my name right now, I need it put in [the] top 10. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who Bellator puts in front of me, but I need top 10. Top 10 guys. Doesn’t matter who. I want to fight with the best guys in the top 10.”

If he gets a deal done, Mota is hoping to fight again this year. “I want to keep fighting. I want to fight one more fight this year,” he stated. “Tomorrow I rest, Sunday rest, Monday I’ll be back in the gym.”

“This is my lifestyle, I want to fight as quick as possible.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Killys Mota above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

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The 22-year old has spent his entire pro career in Bellator, with six submission victories in seven fights. Only once has he gone the distance. Friday’s win came via rear-naked choke over Johnny Soto, who apparently had something of a Jekyll and Hyde personality during fight week.

“I was assuming just based off the weigh-in, he [Soto] just seemed very aggressive. It was very weird, like I interacted with him all week, we’re in a small hotel. And all week we’re working out in the hotel gym next to each other, and he’s just kind of like ‘oh hey’ thumbs up or whatever, very nice, very whatever, we’re b.s.’ing about the temperature in the gym,” Brennan recalled during his post-fight media appearance. “Like we’re talking all week, and then we’re doing the weigh-ins and he’s like ‘ahhh [throat slash gesture], whatever, and I was like ‘bro you were just saying ‘Hi,’ we were cool. And I saw him five minutes later walking around the Mohegan [Sun Casino], he’s looking at me like ‘hey man how you doing?'”

“I figured you turn the cameras on, maybe he was just going to come right at me,” continued Brennan. “But no one we’ve fought has fought to their typical style. So I think it just went how it went, and I’m not complaining.”

Perhaps the weigh-in antics are a sign of things to come. It seems likely that at least some opponents will attempt to get under Brennan’s skin, utilizing trash talk and similar approaches. Brennan, however, has seen it all before, dating back to his time as an amateur while still in high school.

And frankly, he doesn’t see much point in it.

“I had a guy a half hour before I started warming up and stuff, @ me on Instagram in stories, saying that I sucked. And I’m going to go find it right now, because I’m petty,” said Brennan. “And then, even as an amateur, I was a minor, I was in high school, and a guy’s like @’ing me on Twitter, talking— no matter what I say or what he says, we both have to get in there and do it, so what good is all the trash talk really doing? It’s not like we’re making millions, if I start talking trash, we’re not going to make an extra fifty bucks. I’m not out here selling Pay-Per-Views. So what good is trash talk, really?”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Lucas Brennan above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

The post Bellator 282: Lucas Brennan Has No Use for Trash Talk appeared first on Cageside Press.

Flyweight Ilara Joanne is known to fight fans as “Arya Stark,” the pint-sized heroine of HBO’s Game of Thrones (not to mention the A Song of Ice and Fire novels on which the show was based). And yes, she’s “very excited” for the upcoming spin-off House of the Dragon, noting that the network “just keeps teasing us.”

Like her namesake, Joanne has a list of opponents she wants to eliminate. And after getting back in the win column with a unanimous decision win over Alejandra Lara at Bellator 282 this past Friday, Macfarlane is the name she want to cross off next.

“The next name on my list is Ilima-Lei Macfarlane. She was the one I was looking to fight ever since I got the contract from Bellator, so she’s still on my mind,” Joanne (10-6) told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “And after that, I want to go after the number two in the rankings, and then to the belt.”

Macfarlane recently returned to action after taking over a year off, only to be upset at home in Hawaii by Justine Kish this past April.

After missing time herself due to a shoulder injury, Joanne is hoping to stay busy this year. “Right now I’m healthy, so I’d like to fight as soon as possible. I’ll say September.”

Happy to be back on the winning track after a two-fight slump, Joanne became emotional when explaining just how much the win meant to her, after fighting around the world against some very tough opponents.

“The media, the odds-makers, everyone thought that I couldn’t do it. And it’s been like this for me ever since before I was born, because I wasn’t desired,” she stated. “To get here with the support of those who really believe in me, those who tell me I can do it, and to show everyone that I can break those shackles, that I can come up here, prove people wrong, prove that I can do it— that has no price for me. That’s what I’m here for, to keep going after self-improvement, and [to] break records, and create my history, make people start [to] believe in me.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Ilara Joanne above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

The post Bellator 282: The Next Name on Ilara Joanne’s List? Ex-Champ Ilima-Lei Macfarlane appeared first on Cageside Press.

He also walked away with a unanimous decision win in the quarterfinal round of the Bellator Bantamweight Grand Prix. It’s technically his second fight of the tournament, having won a qualifier against Jornel Lugo back in April.

Following a mostly one-sided decision against Leandro Higo, whose best and only chance came in the second round when he had Sabatello’s back, “The Italian Gangster” moves to the semifinals. There, he will meet Raufeon Stots, with interim gold on the line. Stots picked up the interim belt after Sergio Pettis was forced out of the grand prix, but Sabatello isn’t having any of this “interim” title talk.

“Stots is the champion of this division right now. I don’t want to hear sh*t about Sergio Pettis. He’s a p*ssy,” Sabatello (13-1) told Cageside Press and other media outlets following Bellator 282 on Friday. “He couldn’t even make it to the battlefield. I think he pulled his ACL or some sh*t, I don’t know. He might’ve retired, I don’t know. Stots is also a little b*tch, but Pettis is a f*cking little b*tch. He is not the champion. Stots has that belt and I’m going to take it from him.”

As far as Sabatello is concerned, there’s no interim title when he faces Stots. “This is not an interim title fight in my next fight. This is a title fight. So the winner of this f*cking fight is going to be the bantamweight champion, and it’s the same thing with winning the tournament. The winner of this tournament is the best bantamweight on planet Earth.”

Sabatello has become known as a motormouth, a sharp-tongued self-promoter who so far has backed it up in the cage. But fans at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut on Friday didn’t love the action they saw in the cage, which was heavy on grappling and wrestling, short on striking.

“The boos were music to my cauliflower ears. That was f*cking awesome,” Sabatello exclaimed. “What I did specifically like about this fight was in that second round, I faced some adversity. I had a guy like Higo on my back, who’s an absolute killer on somebody’s back. I weathered that storm, I got up, I smiled, I was happy I got out of it, and then I just pushed forward until the next rounds and absolutely f*cking dominated him.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Danny Sabatello above. More coverage from the event can be found below.

The post Bellator 282’s Danny Sabatello: Stots, Not Pettis, Is Champ, “I’m Going to Take It From Him” appeared first on Cageside Press.

The punishing walk-off KO was the climax of a tumultuous Bellator 282 fight week, which saw a shoving match erupt between the two during weigh-ins as tempers flared.

𝙍𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏, 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿𝙉𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏 😱@SabahHomasi lands his 7️⃣th first-round KO with this rocket of a right hand. #Bellator282 @MonsterEnergy Prelims, fueled by El Super Markets, are LIVE NOW on our YouTube. pic.twitter.com/hz74GdSbmZ

— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) June 24, 2022

Homasi (17-10) opened up about the circumstances behind the spat following his win at the Mohegan Sun Arena on Friday.

“To be honest, what started everything was, Tuesday we were in the workout room. Hence we were in the blue corner, I’m in the red corner but I’m with Johnny [Eblen, ATT middleweight].”

In other words, Homasi was on Mendonca’s turf, being a red corner fighter but accompanying Eblen to the blue corner workout room.

“We were moving around just to get a sweat. And he came in. So out of respect of it being his workout room— you know it was late at night, we didn’t figure he was going to be in there. So he comes in and I said, being respectful, I said ‘sorry man, I didn’t know you were going to be in here this late, if you want I can go over to my corner, to the red locker room.”

Homasi didn’t get the response he was looking for. In fact, he didn’t get one at all. “He f*cking ignores me. So I’m like alright, two options here, either this motherf*cker doesn’t speak English, or he’s just being a c*cksucker. But from the way he was looking at me, he was definitely being a d*ckhead.”

“So I’m like ‘alright motherf*cker,'” Homasi continued. “Next thing you know, we’re at the f*cking weigh-ins, and he says he’s going to kill me. And then he headbutts me. In English. What the f*ck is that?”

That led to Homasi gunning for the knockout during the fight, and landing it. Or, as he later put it, “gave him an Ambien, put him to sleep.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press scrum with Sabah Homasi above.

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Rarely has Mousasi been on the wrong end of a drubbing as thorough as Eblen’s on Friday, which saw the American Top Team fighter awarded 50-45 scores from all three judges.

The tone was set early, with Eblen knocking down Mousasi in the opening round. The Dutch legend never seemed to get out of first gear, while Eblen, with constant head movement and a sledgehammer of a right hand, never let up on the pace.

Following his title-winning performance, Bellator’s new middleweight champion said that the outcome was expected.

“Expected. That’s pretty much it. It sounds like what it’s supposed to sound like,” Eblen (12-0) said backstage at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. “During this whole week, I knew this was going to happen. I had moments of doubt, but I worked through them like anybody else, any other hard working man in the universe, and now I’m a champion.”

While Eblen has come off as a cool customer in his build to the title, he admitted to having an emotional moment following the win.

“The only emotion I felt really was when I saw my mom after I won the belt. Because she hates this sport, she hates that I fight, yet she traveled halfway across the country to watch me fight for a belt, and she did not expect this sh*t,” Eblen explained. “So just seeing my mom and being able to win this belt in front of her just meant a lot. Her and my family, but for some reason I saw my mom and I got emotional.”

There was a moment immediately after the win as well, Eblen added. Essentially when the realization that he had beat Mousasi for the title sunk in.

“When I was in the cage after I won I was a little bit emotional. I was more excited like ‘damn I just took this from a legend,’ but it was expected.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight press conference with Johnny Eblen above.

The post Bellator 282: Johnny Eblen Says Performance Against Mousasi “Expected” appeared first on Cageside Press.

In fact, the 36-year old, approaching two full decades in the sport of mixed martial arts, has been as busy as ever. Bellator 282 on Friday marked his second attempt at defending his middleweight title in 2022. A third fight, for either 185 or 205, was already penciled in for the end of the year.

This latest showdown came against Johnny Eblen, a standout wrestler from a standout gym in American Top Team.

He played the role of spoiler on Friday, and played it well.

Eblen opened up the action with a kick, which Mousasi returned a moment later, going high with his own attempt. A couple of low kicks from Eblen followed; he circled on the outside, away from the champ. Eblen showed good head movement, and found a home for his left hand, then dropped Mousasi seconds later with a right! The champ went into a takedown, clearly hurt, and came back up no doubt still rocked. Eblen then went after a takedown, putting Mousasi into a sitting position, back to the cage.

As Mousasi worked to one knee, Eblen landed knees to the thigh, then tried to time one to the head as Mousasi came all the way up. Almost immediately, Eblen landed another takedown, not letting up on the pace. Mousasi would eventually reverse, threaten with a choke, and land on Eblen off the break, but there wasn’t much on that punch. Mousasi spent the last minute or so of the round walking Eblen down, kicking his leg while “The Human Cheat Code” did a bit of showboating.

Mousasi landed a crisp left jab early in round two; Eblen came back with a big right that just missed. Another would follow, and Eblen soon blasted into a takedown, putting Mousasi on his back in the center of the cage. Mousasi tried to scramble, but wound up stuck on his back, Eblen in side control. The champ would scramble up, but Eblen dragged him down again, and stayed on him as Mousasi got to the fence. By the midway point of the round, Eblen had landed yet another takedown, leaving Mousasi on the fence once again.

Later in the round, Mousasi began walking Eblen down again — but ate another right hand, albeit with less on it. Eblen tried a superman punch of the cage late, and went to the third having put on an impressive performance to that point.

Johnny Eblen started the third walking Mousasi down, adding a low kick, with Mousasi later kicking the inside of Eblen’s thigh. Mousasi ripped a kick to the body, and Eblen returned the favor. Eblen launched his overhand right several more times, and while there were no knockdowns, Mousasi still seemed caught off-guard by it. The body language between the two was night and day; Eblen was a blur of constant movement, Mousasi nearly stationary. Eblen then backed the champ up to the fence, landing a couple more times. Mousasi was still in first gear. Heck, he was barely out of park.

Early in round four, Mousasi had to block a head kick. He ate a right hand after throwing one of his own, and Eblen then charged forward for a takedown, landing it just a minute into the round. By the midway mark of the round, Eblen had the back, hooks in, and was hunting for a rear-naked choke. Mousasi attempted to reverse, to no avail. Instead, he wall walked up, and dodged a right hand, only to be taken down once again.

👊 @JohnnyEblen just won't let up on @Mousasi_MMA.#Bellator282 live NOW on @SHOsports
💻 https://t.co/Zg0a3DUrFs pic.twitter.com/WwghHMKv0o

— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) June 25, 2022

Round five had Gegard Mousasi more than likely down four rounds. He ate a right hand early in the round, followed by some more showboating from Eblen. Mousasi flashed a front kick. Near the midway mark of the round, Eblen took Mousasi down for the umpteenth time, and the clock was now an issue. With just over a minute remaining, Mousasi got to his knees, but had Eblen all over him. Mousasi got up, Eblen landed one final takedown — a suplex — and thus ended the best performance of Johnny Eblen’s career, at the perfect moment. Five rounds of dominance against a living legend in Mousasi.

Just a dozen fights into his pro career, Eblen now has his first major championship. Bellator’s middleweight division, meanwhile, is on notice.

Official Result: Johnny Eblen def. Gegard Mousasi by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)

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