Every fighter will tell you that they learn more from victories than defeats and that is no different for Bellator 139 fighter Bobby Cooper.
Cooper (11-5) began his professional mixed martial arts career in 2010 and has competed in several promotions including Titan FC, RFA, and Bellator. Tomorrow night will mark his return to the Bellator cage as he defeated Marcio Navarro at Bellator 113 last year.
The win over Navarro was his fourth straight win, but he has dropped two of his last three fights. His last fight came at Titan FC 33 in March and his major lesson from that fight was simply, do not let the judges decide your fate.
“Don’t leave it in the judges hands. That fight there — first round, he held me down,” Cooper told The MMA Report. “Second and third round, I beat him and I lost a split decision. It’s one of those things where these judges are sketchy some times. You just can not let them happen.”
“That fight in Alabama, I really turned it on in the third round,” he continued. “I got mean and aggressive and just stopped really caring. That is how I train in the gym and that is how I should fight all of my fights. A lot of the times I worry about being too technical so my mindset is a lot different in this fight. Be nasty and just fight.”
Some fighters mindsets are to forget about their previous fights and only worry about the fight that is ahead of them. However, Cooper admitted that his lost to Andy Uhrich at Titan FC 33 still bothers him since he knows he won that fight.
“I have watched it one hundred times and it bothers me because the fact I won. You can not do anything about that ‘L’, it just stays there. It sticks with me that I left it in the judges hands but as being upset with my performance or anything like that, I don’t bother my mind with things like that.”
On Friday night, he will meet an undefeated fighter in Pablo Villaseca. This will be the Bellator debut for Villaseca and Cooper has struggled to find a lot of tape on his opponent. In the tape that he has seen, he sees a fighter that has good strikes. While he understands his opponents strengths, this fight is about what he is going to do, not what Villaseca is going to attempt to accomplish.
“The gym that I am from, we are very technical fighters,” Cooper explained. “We know if we go out there and fight our fight, there are not many people in the world that can defeat us. Sitting there and worrying about how hard he hits is just a waste.”
This will be the 17th professional fight for Cooper and 12 of those fights have gone to the judges scorecards. He wants to be known as a finisher, which he was as an amateur fighter. With his new mindset heading into this fight, he expects to score his fifth career win by stoppage.
“If you look at my record, I have way too many decisions,” he said. “If I want to go anywhere, I need to start having these finishes. I hit hard. I am fast. I kick hard. As an amateur, when I was actually fighting people and did not know much, I knocked people out and finished people all of the time. Then being pro and so technical — if I want to be on the big stage in Bellator and starting being somebody in Bellator, I need to finish it and this would be a good finish to have.”