(“Awwww…How adorable are you?”)
It looks like Brett Rogers is content with his career being that of a can crusher.
The former EliteXC and Strikeforce heavyweight’s next opponent is 38-year-old Todd Allee, who is 2-1 (1 NC) with only four fights under his belt, including two wins against a pair of fighters with a combined 0-3 record.
“Da Grim,” who was dropped by Zuffa after his arrest last summer for beating his wife, was set to square off at the “My Bloody Valentine” event with another disgraced fighter by the name of Jeff “The Predator” Kugel. The 1-0 Michigan native, whose sole win came over Eric “Butterbean” Esch, was banned for life by the Ontario Hockey League after taking to the ice during a brawl, pulling a Paul Daley sucker punching an unsuspecting victim and skating around the ice trying to incite the crowd while the referees attempted to corral him.
Now instead he’ll face Allee, a Michigan-based gym owner and purple belt who hasn’t fought in a year.
Not surprisingly, Alee, like us, isn’t giving himself much of a chance of beating Rogers.
“I’m expected to lose, so if I put in a good performance, I did well for myself,” he explains. “I don’t feel worried.”
He is holding onto a thread of hope that he could somehow pull off a miracle win over his veteran opponent.
“I think it’s a good opportunity to fight a guy like him in my hometown. At this point, I would rather fight a big-name guy like this than some kid from nowhere who is an All-American wrestler and undefeated. Even if I beat [the wrestler], it does nothing for my career,” he says. “If I beat Brett Rogers, I’m a superhero!”
The question is, what kind of a commission sanctions a mismatch like this? Where I live, they’ve turned down evenly-matched fights between veterans because one of the fighters who has fought UFC vets and a WEC champion, hadn’t competed in MMA for three years. Rogers is 11-4. He’s faced Overeem, Barnett and Fedor and he beat Andrei Arlovski. There’s no way he should be matched up with a guy with as little experience as Allee.