Despite coming in December 2022, the uppercut KO was among those nominated for Upset of the Year at the 15th Annual World MMA Awards last month. And while Echols didn’t win, he reflected on the fight and his memories of it speaking to Cageside Press on the red carpet.

When it comes to what stands out most, “I would say the adversity I faced,” said Echols. “That was the first fight I ever came into where I was like ‘I know this guy has more accolades than me, he has everything, it’s all on the table. He’s supposed to beat me.’ It was the first time I was really the underdog.”

“When he took me down, he got on top, set up with that choke, I started panicking, I was like ‘oh he’s really what they say he is.’ But I’ve got that thing inside of me too, that night I proved to myself like ‘I belong here, this guy’s not going to do this to me.’ When I got back to the feet, started putting the hands on him, it was the wildest moment of my life. It felt like a movie, it was insane.”

Ahead of the fight, Echols might have had just a little doubt, hoping he’d get lucky in the bout. “Yeah man,” he stated. “Honestly before the fight, my big thing with fighting is, I tell people all the time ‘the only way we can know is if we find out.’ With the fight game, anybody can be beat on any given night. So it’s like, you’ve just got to find out. That’s what I said to my coach, I was like ‘well we’re going to damn find out who’s really better when we get in there.'”

“I proved out I’ve got the dog in me, and that was a big thing to myself. I took that, and I’ve taken on a four-fight win streak. I took a fall in my last one, but I’m going to come back strong and really show everybody that I’m going to the UFC soon.”

Watch our full interview with Christian Echols above.

The post Christian Echols Reflects on Epic Upset of Pat Downey appeared first on Cageside Press.

She hadn’t told her mom that she was fighting.

The Brazilian revealed after her win over former Bellator MMA women’s flyweight title contender and kickboxing champ Denise Kielholtz that “she doesn’t even know I was fighting tonight, because I didn’t want her to get worried. But mom, this is for us, this is for the three of us.”

The fighter known as “Arya Stark,” clearly a Game of Thrones fan, now has back-to-back wins over top five caliber fighters, between Kielholtz and Lara. She hopes that earns her a number next to her own name.

“When I beat Lara, she was number five in the rankings. And now I beat Denise. She’s number three. And I hope I get to be in the rankings now, because I’m still not there, and I think this puts me one fight away from a title shot,” said Joanne.

Joanne was rooting for fellow Brazilian Juliana Velasquez to win Friday, though that didn’t happen. Instead, Liz Carmouche retained her 125lb title in the co-main event. Either way, the title is her goal, and she believes she’ll bring the belt home to mom.

“That was my goal when I got here, and I believe the goal of every other fighter that got into the promotion,” Joanne said. “And I feel that I’m pretty close to it, and I’m certain that when the time comes, the belt is going to my home, it’s going to stay with my mother.”

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight media appearance by Ilara Joanne above.

The post Ilara Joanne Didn’t Tell Her Mom She Was Fighting at Bellator 289 appeared first on Cageside Press.

Willis (16-4) claimed an important unanimous decision victory over Kyle Crutchmer, snapping a two fight skid in the process. That certainly takes some pressure off, but just how bad was Willis’ year prior to Friday night?

“On thanksgiving, instead of me eating, I was out there stuffing takedowns,” he said during his post-fight media scrum. Okay, that’s kind of crummy, but part of the fight game.

Then there was losing a couple of cars. “Straight up, I lost the Cadillac, I lost an Infinity, all to Memphis, they was doing their thing, they took all my sh*t,” revealed Willis, who resides in Memphis, TN. That was just the beginning. “I lost a lot, bro. It was a tough year, and then I took two Ls, lost two girlfriends. I was just taking Ls, and I was like sh*t, I gotta get to winning for real.”

At the very least, the win over Crutchmer is a reprieve.

“The Realist” is staying positive moving forward. “I believe what you all seen tonight was just the beginning. At first I was kind of content with what I’d been doing. I had to be humbled quite a bit, and that’s what happened to me this year. And now, I think I’m on one of the best teams in the world, got some of the best coaches in the world. I got LAW School [MMA, in Memphis], I got Kill Cliff FC behind me. So I can’t be stopped.”

With that in mind, Jaleel Willis had a message for the welterweight division.

“Real is here. The real is here. I might have stumbled a little bit, but the real is here, man,” Willis exclaimed. “Y’all better know it, bruh. I ain’t bullsh*tting. The real is here, man.”

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight media appearance by Jaleel Willis above.

The post Bellator 289: Jaleel Willis Glad to Be Back to Winning After Losing Two Fights, Two Cars and Two Girlfriends appeared first on Cageside Press.

Kamaka (10-5-1) previously competed for the UFC, and is now 2-1 since returning to Bellator last year.

Of late, Kamaka has been working on shoring up his wrestling game, working with a couple familiar names in training.

“In Vegas, Jeremy Kennedy and Mads Burnell, they kind of helped me the most, making those grappling gains,” Kamaka said following the fight. “Because I’m kind of a folkstyle wrestler, and those two guys, they’re not folkstyle wrestlers, they’re more greco and jiu-jitsu guys. So they’ve helped me gain a lot on the jiu-jitsu and the grappling side.”

The key for Kamaka moving into 2023, he said, is to “just stay active and keep getting better. I feel like my skills, I’m also improving, I don’t take any breaks. So just staying active, taking the baby steps, the steps that I haven’t taken over the past two years, just from always wanting the next big one, next big one, next big one.”

In terms of where he can improve, it’s less about skills, and more about just working on himself as a whole, he later explained. “I’ve still got to work on myself. I feel like that’s the only thing I’m fighting when I’m in there, is myself. It doesn’t matter the opponent, I have so many tools that it doesn’t matter the opponent, I’ve just got to be in control of myself.”

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight press conference with Kai Kamaka III above.

The post Bellator 289: Kai Kamaka Striving to Be In Better Control of Himself in Fights appeared first on Cageside Press.

Being kind about, Echols (3-2) was brought in to lose. He was a setup fight for Downey, a decorated wrestler who had won his Bellator debut earlier this year.

Apparently, Echols did not get the memo. He lit Downey up after surviving a tight choke attempt on the ground. After a knockdown, a final uppercut dropped Downey for good, just about halfway into the opening round of their middleweight fight.

If you were paying close attention, however, you may not have been so surprised. Echols believes he’s better than his record shows at first glance.

“This is the thing with my career. I started out 0-2. I fought Tresean Gore, and I fought Derik Overstreet. Both big 85’ers. While I was training four hours a week, with my dad, at the house,” Echols recalled, speaking back stage at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT following the fight. “I did good as an amateur because I’m tough. I’ve just always been a fighter. My dad was a fighter and everything. So amateur career, I did okay.”

Then, Echols turned pro. A little too soon. “I had this promoter like ‘hey man, go pro and I’ll pay you.’ Of course I’m 18, 19 years old, I was 19 I was like ‘yeah dude I’ll go pro, pay me.'”

That led to the two aforementioned losses. A rough start, to be sure. “Everybody looks at my record and they’re like ‘oh he’s 2-2,’ well 3-2 now. I was 2-2, so everybody looked at me as a scrub.” What those people were missing, said Echols, is that after he turned his life around and “stopped doing the stupid things I was doing and found God,” he switched from four hours a week in training, to six hours a day dedicated to fighting.

“I’m training all the time. My last two fights, I have a total of 55 seconds. In total, through both fights. And nobody sees that. They look at 2-2, they’re like ‘ah we’ll get this scrub in here, he’ll fight Pat Downey, Pat Downey will whup his butt. Go on with the day.'”

“That’s not the case. I’m here to show everybody, I’m not to be played with.”

Watch the full Bellator 282 post-fight media appearance by Christian Echols above.

The post Bellator 289: Christian Echols Here to Show Everybody “I’m Not To Be Played With” appeared first on Cageside Press.

Middleweight Rosta improved to 8-0 with a unanimous decision win over Anthony Adams, ranked #10 in the 185lb weight class. Rosta himself started the night at #5, and is likely to inch forward a spot or two later this week.

The fight was a grind at times, but that is something Rosta is used to. “I could do that all day long. I’m used to working hard, and going to dark places, and fighting my way out of them,” the middleweight known as “Hercules” — built like him, quite frankly — said following the fight. “But that’s not how I want to fight. I want a long career, I want to finish guys.”

Rosta did chase the finish in the third round, and had Adams hurt right at the end. Another minute, and he might have had a stoppage. “If anything, it’s more of a tease than anything,” Rosta said of that late surge.

“I need to continue to get better,” the 27-year old said later. “My teammate Johnny [Eblen] is the champ right now, we train together all the time, we get better. I’m getting my experience in the cage.”

Of course, having a teammate, at American Top Team, who holds the belt in the same promotion and weight class could pose a problem down the road. “We might have to fight each other. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, but at the end of the day it’s just business,” Rosta stated. “But until that day, I’m going to keep training with him, keep getting better, because he pushes me. He’s a beast. He has a good gas tank, good striking, good wrestling. I think he has all the qualities I have plus a good gas tank. He’s a really good fighter, an I’m blessed to have him in the gym.”

After going the distance for the fourth time in five fights, Rosta does seen a silver lining, as much as he wants to finish opponents.

“One thing I can take away from these decision victories is that I’m getting more cage time. And I’m learning to chain things together as I go,” he noted.

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight media appearance by Dalton Rosta above.

The post Bellator 289: Dalton Rosta “Blessed” to Have Champ Eblen in the Gym with Him appeared first on Cageside Press.

Carmouche, a two-time title challenger at 135lbs in the UFC, first won Bellator’s 125lb belt earlier this year, putting away Velasquez by TKO. With a bit of controversy stemming from the finish (Velasquez appealed the result, arguing it was early, but was unsuccessful), the second fight was booked — and there was no question as to the winner this time out, with Velasquez tapping to an arm-bar.

As luck would have it, Bellator President Scott Coker is not closed to the idea of adding a third weight class for women. Thus far, Bellator has featured only women’s flyweight and featherweight, with the occasional one-off strawweight fight thrown in for good measure.

But talks about a 135lb weight class for the ladies have happened, Coker said following Friday’s event in Unvasville, CT.

“I’ll tell you, we’ve had conversations not with her but internally with our fight team, about the possibility of opening up a 135 division,” Coker said back stage at the Mohegan Sun Arena. “So there is dialog. It’s not guaranteed, but there is dialog, and we haven’t made a decision yet.”

The hold up, historically, has been the ability to accommodate another weight class.

“When you think about Bellator and how many TV dates there are, and how many TV slots there are, there’s only so many slots. We have nine divisions, we felt really good about our nine divisions. We felt we could be really strong at 45 and 25, so those are the divisions we went with.”

“But,” added Coker, “we might open it up. We’ll see.”

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight press conference with Scott Coker above.

The post Scott Coker Says Internal Discussions on Women’s Bantamweight in Bellator Have Happened appeared first on Cageside Press.

Mix (17-1) choked out Magomed Magomedov in the second round of their semi-final fight, becoming the first man to finish “Tiger” in the process.

“I choked out, maybe I was 10-0 as an amateur, I was fighting in California, I choked someone with that same prayer choke,” Mix recalled following the fight. “I was just trying to be patient. It’s surreal right now. It’s crazy, man. What a ride.”

That said, Mix was not surprised he could get the job done on the ground. In fact, he’s exuding confidence when it comes to his submission game, and for good reason.

“I’ve got a mean guillotine, and I choke choke anyone in the world out with it. Normally in the practice room, they have to tap, but in a fight, they’re reluctant to tap. Any time someone taps, I could basically strangle them out unconscious.”

Mix believed, after watching Magomedov’s fight with Enrique Barzola, that the Russian was susceptible to the choke. “I felt like he has the warrior spirit. Magomed has the true warrior code. I knew I wasn’t going to get him unless I put him out. I knew I had to put him out.”

“He showed his true heart, and he went unconscious,” added Mix.

Moving forward, Mix, as he has said for the past several days, believes he’s the favorite in the Bantamweight Grand Prix.

“I’ve been telling everyone all f*cking weekend, I’m the favorite to win this tournament,” Mix exclaimed. “Now what? Now we’re gonna be talking. I’m the favorite. Want to know why? See those two guys in the finale? I could submit them too.”

“Those two guys” refers to Raufeon Stots and Danny Sabatello. With Stots coming away with the win, Mix will get his chance to beat the interim champ sometime in the first half of 2023.

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight press conference with Patchy Mix above.

The post Bellator 289: Patchy Mix Believes He Can Choke “Anyone in the World” Out With His Guillotine appeared first on Cageside Press.

While one judge had scored the fight 50-45 for Sabatello, two others had awarded rival Raufeon Stots scores of 48-47. In a close fight, that 50-45 was a glaring outlier, but Sabatello nevertheless believes he did enough to win the fight.

“Pissed off” is how he described his emotions following the bout. “I think I won that fight, my team thinks I won that fight. Obviously I take full responsibility for the loss. Any time you lose a decision, you could have obviously stopped the other guy and won by stoppage, whether it’s KO or submission. But I don’t know how the f*ck I lost that fight.”

“I think the judges f*cked this one,” Sabatello (13-2) exclaimed. The bantamweight, who lost out on a spot in the Bellator Bantamweight Grand Prix Final with the loss, was heated about the judges throughout his post-fight media appearance. “I don’t know how one judge has it 50-45, I win every single f*cking round, then the guy next to him has me lose a close fight. It doesn’t f*cking make sense to me. But it is what it is. Nothing changes off my book, I think I won. That’s that.”

Despite the loss, Sabatello insisted that his future remains bright. He’ll return to American Top Team, and “go balls to the wall in training and keep striving to get that f*cking belt. I’m young, I only started MMA four years ago, I got in Bellator a year ago and I already got this title shot. So obviously it’s a very bright future for me, and it’s just a little speed bump.”

“At the end of the day, I still think I’m the best f*cking bantamweight in the world. I still know I f*cking won that fight. It’s become a sport where you’re just trying to trick three f*cking judges, and that’s it,” he added. “Doesn’t matter how anyone else sees the fight, it’s just three f*cking people that don’t even know what they’re looking at.”

Sabatello took umbrage with the vast discrepancy in control time between himself and Stots. “I had over ten minutes of control time, and he had under one minute. I don’t see how somebody wins the fight there. He threw a lot of strikes that did not land.”

In the fifth round, Sabatello claimed that Stots “was throwing an elbow that was hitting my shoulder repeatedly, not connecting. I don’t have a bump or a bruise on me. I am perfectly fine, he never f*cking hit my face. Again it’s very frustrating, because I think I won that fight, but again I do take full responsibility because at the end of the day, I f*cking lost, no matter what I think or anyone says. I know I lost.”

Sabatello was leaking a bit of blood by the end of the fight, his bleached blonde hair dyed red to one side. The 29-year old was adamant nonetheless that the judges were at fault. Which will perhaps color how he seeks to shore up his game back in the gym.

“A loss like this, you go back and you kind of work on techniques to trick the judges. If I throw a lot of volume in that fight, if I throw a lot of punches and they don’t land, and they just hit his arm and nothing else, it’s gonna look like I’m beating him up evidentially in the judge’s mind,” said Sabatello. “Right now in this sport, all you gotta do is trick three judges.”

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight media appearance by Danny Sabatello above.

The post Bellator 289: Danny Sabatello Says MMA Is Just Trying to “Trick Three Judges” appeared first on Cageside Press.

But having gone their separate ways in terms of teams, it appears they are now open to such an engagement. Following Carmouche’s successful title defense over Juliana Velasquez at Bellator 289, the current 125lb champ suggested that she could serve as Macfarlane’s final opponent, given the Hawaiian has been talking retirement of late.

The catch? Carmouche (18-7) is gunning for a fight at bantamweight, a division Bellator does not currently feature.

“Ilima-Lei Macfarlane and I have been training partners for years, we have a lot of respect, we’re really good friends,” Carmouche told members of the media backstage at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT on Friday. “And she’s talking about, she wants to retire and she wants her fight against me to be her retirement.”

“After one, her not making weight the last fight, and just— who always wants to have to cut all the way down all the time? It would make sense to me. And I want to be Bellator’s 135 champion and I want to hold a belt in two divisions. And I can’t think of anybody better to do that with than Ilima, as her retirement fight being my opening to opening a new division in Bellator.”

“So I want to fight her in Hawaii for her retirement, and then [Kana] Watanabe has worked her way up the ranks.”

Carmouche and Japan’s Watanabe have met once before, with “The Girl-Rilla” finishing the fight in all of 35 seconds via TKO. “I think she deserves a second go, because I think I did catch her by circumstance. I don’t think that was what was supposed to happen. And to do that in Japan, where, that’s where I grew up, and it’s her home roots, I think that would be a phenomenal card for Bellator to put on.”

Bellator heads to Japan later this month for a cross-promotional event with RIZIN on New Year’s Eve, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Carmouche gets her fish at a future date.

Watch the full Bellator 289 post-fight appearance by Liz Carmouche above.

The post Bellator 289: Liz Carmouche Wants to Be Ilima-Lei Macfarlane’s Final Opponent, at Bantamweight appeared first on Cageside Press.