During a recent episode of The MMA Insiders Podcast, Sam Caplan and I were discussing the faces of various mixed martial arts promotions and we debated on who is the current face of Bellator.
In the previous era of Bellator, many people would have said the face of the promotion was Bjorn Rebney since he was a promoter that was constantly doing media interview.
With Rebney no longer running the company and new Bellator President Scott Coker being a promoter that does not do many interviews, who is the face of the promotion?
A person that believes he is the face of the promotion is current bantamweight champion Joe Warren. He has been with the promotion since 2010 when he won the Bellator featherweight tournament and went on to defeat Joe Soto to become the 145 champion. According to the self proclaimed “Baddest Man on the Planet,” he believes that he is the face of the promotion.
“I sure as hell hope so,” Warren told The MMA Report. “I have been with Bellator since their first year and I love Bellator. I love that every single time it gets bigger. I love that I have a home there and I have been able to win a title under both regimes. I like to call myself the Bellator spokesman and I have a home there. So I would like to say I am the face of Bellator.”
Warren (12-3) is currently on a five fight winning streak and he will make his first unified bantamweight title defense next Friday night as he meets Marcos Galvao in a rematch of their 2011 bout, which Warren won by unanimous decision. While the judges scoring the fight gave it to Warren, there were people that felt Galvao should have won the fight.
“I think the first fight was the fight year of me fighting and I just think I am a different fighter now,” Warren said. “I have not seen the fight. Controversial? It’s mixed martial arts. It happens. I just think this time, I will be able to finish this guy in the first few rounds instead of leaving it up to the judges.”
With this being a rematch, has Warren gone back to watch the first fight to prepare for this fight or because it was nearly four years ago, he is not worried about the first fight? Warren lets his coaches worry about watching film on his opponents and he is concentrating on his game to walk away with a victory next Friday night.
“I do not watch a lot of film, I let me coaches do that. It seems that I get anxious and most of my performances I put out, I see a lot of mistakes. I am focused on moving forward and being offensive and not worrying about those mistakes so I do not like to watch the fights. I believe that I am an offensive fighter and if I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, it does not matter what my opponent is doing. I am still going to be offensive and score. I am not a defensive guy so I think if I was more of a defensive fighter, I might watch more of the fights but I leave it up to my coaches. I leave it up to Marc Montoya to watch it. I go to practice and I train hard with whatever he is training me with.”
Every fighter will talk about how they visualize a fight going down and how they see the victory coming. For Warren, he expects to make a successful title defense and does not plan to leave the fight in the judges hands.
“Release all this new technique I have and finish this Brazilian in the Bellator cage. I am excited about the opportunity of my offensive technique. It’s coming. I am not having to think about fighting. It’s reaction. I see myself finishing Marcos and moving forward.”