Esther Lin / MMA Fighting
Gegard Mousasi believes Bellator middleweight champion Rafael Lovato Jr used “monkey steroids” in their June fight.
Gegard Mousasi isn’t proud of his lackluster win over Lyoto Machida at Bellator 228, but he believes it earned him a rematch with middleweight champion Rafael Lovato Jr.
Mousasi lost the Bellator title to Lovato by decision earlier this year in a major upset. He said that if he enters the rematch with his “head straight,” Lovato “has no chance of beating me.”
“Next fight, I’m gonna kill him,” Mousasi said at the Bellator 228 post-fight press conference Saturday night in Inglewood, California. “I swear to God, if I don’t knock him out, I don’t count it as a victory. I know what I can do. He will die, literally. You will see. I will knock him out, 100 percent. I guarantee you that.”
Mousasi, who in Saturday’s main event avenged a 2014 loss to Machida by beating the former UFC champ in a split decision, went as far to say that he would consider stepping away from the sport should Lovato defeat him a second time.
“If I lose, I retire, I promise you,” Mousasi said. “I’m not kidding. I’m not trying to sell a fight. I know what I can do. Next fight will be extra special, because I’m gonna be extra special boy.
“People say don’t talk about retirement. Maybe I retire, maybe not. But that could be my last fight.”
Mousasi badly wants another shot at Lovato not only because he wants the belt back, but because he believes Lovato cheated in the fight. Mousasi has long had an issue with PED users in the sport.
“That guy looked like a horse,” Mousasi said of Lovato in their June fight. … “That’s not even a little bit of steroids, that’s like monkey steroids. … Everyone knows he was on steroids. People call me a bad loser — maybe I am a little bit. I should’ve beat him. My head wasn’t in it. … I f-cked up myself, so I’m blaming myself, but the juice helped him also.
“At the weigh-in, his nipples were hard like a woman. Go watch it — I’m not kidding or trying to be funny or something. His nipples were twice as — he could’ve given milk to babies.”