Bellator 241: “Pitbull vs. Carvalho” takes place Friday, March 13, 2020 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. airing exclusively on DAZN. In the main event “champ-champ” Patricio “Pitbull” Freire (30-4) will defend his 145 lb. title against Pedro Carvalho (11-3) as part of the ongoing Featherweight Grand Prix.
Elsewhere on the card a pair of knuckle busting punch chuckers at Welterweight will see who stands and who falls in what’s sure to be a brawl. Paul “Semtex” Daley (42-17-2) has finished almost 74% of his MMA wins (31 of 42) by knockout, so you know he didn’t fly over from England to not put on a show for the fans.
Sabah Homasi (13-8) is a knockout artist in his own right though and proved it in just 17 seconds at Bellator 225. If the former UFC fighter is looking to go on a run in Bellator there may be no better time or place to prove it than by knockout out the knockout king, but he gives up a 4” reach advantage at 72” to his stocky and explosive competitor.
Today MMA Mania talks to Sabah Homasi about his upcoming fight with Paul Daley as well as his last bout with Micah Terrill, and whether or not he saw it going down just like that.
“Nah! I didn’t think it would be that fast, but uh, I told myself that kid wasn’t making it out of the first round — so mission accomplished.”
No question about that. Does Homasi expect a similar performance against Paul Daley?
“I expect a finish out of myself with Paul. Even if I don’t finish him, I know I’ll still win regardless. I’m better than him everywhere. I’m the younger, better version of him.”
He’s definitely the younger by six years (31) but it’s cocky to say he’s better given Daley has has almost 100 fights between kickboxing and MMA. Homasi makes no apologies for it.
“Yeah that doesn’t matter. I’ve fought someone who had over 100 pro fights and yeah I ended up knocking him out in the second round, so it doesn’t even matter. I don’t give a shit how many fights he got. We both know what we’re getting into, so what does it matter how many fights he has, you know? I mean that doesn’t matter to me. I don’t give a shit if he has 500 fights. That just means his body’s been through more.”
The only guy I can find on Homasi’s record he knocked out with close to that many fights is Jorge Patino. Does Homasi at least respect all that Daley has done leading up to this bout?
“Absolutely. You know he’s a great name to put on my resume, so I’m excited for this.”
Not only is he a great name he’s a former Welterweight Grand Prix competitor, although Homasi admits that any road through Daley to the title only leads back home to his gym.
“Of course I want my shot at gold you know but my teammate (Douglas Lima) holds the title right now, so um, you know as long as he holds it we won’t be facing each other. Yeah (a win) will put me in the top ten. What is he, No. 5 or No. 6, something like that? So yeah I’ll be in top ten so that’s exactly what I want.”
So what is it like for Homasi to train with Lima at American Top Team? Surprisingly despite his loyalty to the champ he doesn’t have a lot to say about “The Phenom” at all.
“You know it’s rare that I get to work with him when he comes down here. It’s rare that he comes down here, but when he does… you know it’s been years since we trained together. But I’m close friends with him and his brother, and we both have the same manager so, realistically… I mean, I don’t know. It could happen or it couldn’t. I don’t see it happening but he’s a beast man. That’s why he’s a champion. He’s a well rounded, tough motherfucker. That’s exactly what he is. That’s why he’s a three time champion.”
That brings us right back to “Semtex” though, because Homasi already said he’s “better than him everywhere”, which implies Daley is not nearly as well rounded as Lima.
“No, he’s not. He’s um, you know, obviously a lot of his wins come by knockout. He has power in his hands but so do I. This is mixed martial arts, so if you’ve got holes your game you’ll be exposed, and you know that’s that.”
Does Sabah Homasi believe that there any holes in his own game someone can exploit?
“I work on everything. There’s nothing that I don’t work on. I work on my wrestling, I work on my striking, I work on my grappling, I cover everything. I cover everything to be as well rounded as I can be, and prepare myself for anything that comes my way.”
Despite the fact Homasi declared this to be a Welterweight division rankings fight (and arguably even with no formal rankings it is) he has no idea who above him he’d fight next.
“I’ll leave that in Bellator’s hands, you know. I’m not the type of person to turn down fights so… whatever comes my way. Maybe I’ll have a name to call out after the fight. I’ll think about it from here until then but you know first things first I’m just focusing on Paul right now.”
One last thing for Mr. Homasi — after a short and rather unfortunate tenure on the UFC main roster, is there any part of him that would like to do it over again?
“Man you know there’s really nothing I can do, you know? I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason. You know, it is what it is. One door closes, another one opens. I don’t want to say I have regrets. I mean I made some mistakes but obviously you work on fixing those mistakes and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Tune in to Bellator 241 to see if “The Sleek Sheik” Sabah Homasi can deliver another highlight reel knockout win against Paul “Semtex” Daley.
Complete audio of our interview is embedded above, and complete coverage of “Pitbull vs. Carvalho” resides here at MMAmania.com all week long.
Bellator 241’s main card will start at 10 p.m. ET exclusively on DAZN. MMAmania.com will deliver results and play-by-play for the Bellator MMA card HERE.