Bellator Fighting Championships is set to kick off it’s Season Five Bantamweight Tournament this Saturday night in Ohio as eight very tough 135 lb fighters vie for the $100,000 prize, and a shot at the title against Zach Makovsky.
Bellator 51 is scheduled to take place on Sept. 23 at the Canton Memorial Civic Center in Canton, Ohio with the main card airing live on MTV2 and the prelim card streaming live on Spike.com.
One of those bantamweight tournament fighters is former WEC bantamweight champ Chase Beebe (19-7), who is looking at a chance to show the world that he is one of the top fighters at 135 lbs.
Beebe is currently set to face Brazilian fighter, and BJJ black belt, Marcos Galvao in the opening quarterfinal round, but it’s fellow tournament fighter Joe Warren who Beebe has his eyes on.
Speaking to MMAMania.com, Beebe had this to say about both fighters.
You fought (Joe Warren) before in Japan and he beat you during your rough stretch. How much would it mean to you to get a chance to redeem yourself and fight him again?
Chase Beebe: Obviously, you can’t understand as a fighter, but my competitive spirit is so intense and it just grows more intense the older I get. Man, I’ve been counting down the days until I can redeem myself against him. I hate excuses, but for that fight with Warren I didn’t know there was a 10 minute first round until the day before the fight and if you watch that fight I was doing real well against him, kinda beating him up pretty good for the first seven minutes and he didn’t even come close to taking me down. I actually took him down twice and took his back briefly. He got really lucky in that one to be honest with you because he caught me with a knee in the last 20 seconds and in Japan they don’t allow you to use Vaseline because they want more submissions and he just barely grazed me.That was extremely embarrassing. It really opened my eyes when I came home and my mom looked at it, she more made me show her and the plane ride made the swelling all the worse and it was just a great lesson to take away. I’ve taken away a lot of lessons in my career and no lessons are greater than losses. You can beat 100 guys in a row and one loss will give you more experience and more to learn from than any of that. Every time I lose I’m right back in the gym the next day training my butt off 10 times as hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Since that happened three years ago, I’ve been busting my butt and I want to show him that not only have I worked harder, but I’ve worked more intelligently due to my experience. I believe I’m more well-rounded than anybody in my weight class in the world. I can take anybody down and I can’t wait to outwrestle Joe Warren. I want to beat him in every aspect. It’s all words until I do it. I’m stoked man. I can’t wait for that fight. It’ll be the accumulation of a lot of hard work.
And before you get a chance to potentially fight Joe Warren, you’ve got to get through Marcos Galvao, a guy that a lot of people, including myself, thought he beat Joe in that superfight earlier this year. What are your thoughts on Galvao?
Chase Beebe: A lot of people have seen his fights in the WEC but he’s been looking far more impressive as of late. I’ve actually been training with some guys at Jackson’s and I’ve got some inside word that Galvao’s out there training with Jose Aldo. He’s looking tough and he looked good against Warren but, like I told the Bellator production guys, I wasn’t as impressed with Galvao as I was unimpressed with Joe Warren. I’m not saying that to be disrespectful in any way but I think Warren just tried to force things on him and didn’t have any respect for his game. He put himself in compromising positions. I remember thinking that Galvao definitely won that fight. It’s a great first match for me to make a statement. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t care if I fight the best in the tournament first or the worst. I’m gonna have to fight the to guys anyways if I plan on winning this thing. I’m not gonna underestimate him by any means.