After having all fourteen of his professional mixed martial arts fights in the UFC, heavyweight Matt Mitrione will make his Bellator debut tonight in St. Louis as he will meet Carl Seumanutafa on the main card of Bellator 157: Dynamite 2 on Spike.
Mitrione (9-5) signed with Bellator earlier this year after he became a free agent when his contract with the UFC expired and he will be looking to snap a two fight losing streak against Seumanutafa.
In his last fight, he lost to Travis Browne by TKO in the third round and the fight was controversial due to the unintentional eye pokes Mitrione received in the fight. He attempted to appeal the decision to the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission, but his appeal was recently denied. With how everything went down in his last fight, what takeaways did Mitrione take from that fight?
“I think I took a couple of things away from it,” Mitrione stated on the Bellator 157 Media Conference Call. “I think mostly that you can’t necessarily force a fight and you can’t change the way you fight to appease others. Your opponent, referee or whatever else. You have to fight the way you do. It’s the hurt game. The fight business. You just don’t fight for fun. You fight for a career and a paycheck.”
“Sometimes you have to be smart about what you do and I understand that is kind of ambiguous, but that is what I took from it. It did not modify anything in how I do,” he continued. “I am still highly aggressive. I still come forward. I still thrown heavy leather but maybe some tactics and ways I approach getting into certain positions or combinations have changed.”