Canadian fighter Chad Laprise (5-0) made a memorable debut with the Bellator Fighting Championships last Friday night in Windsor, with a beautiful triangle submission-win over Josh Taveirne. Laprise got the tap at 2:48 of the first round, leaving his perfect record of five wins and five finishes intact.
I spoke with Laprise today as he got ready to head off to British Columbia to corner Adrenaline Training Center mate Jesse Ronson in his title fight in Trail on Saturday night.
Laprise’s other teammate and friend Chris Horodecki was knocked out in his fight right before Laprise went out for his.
I wondered what type of an effect that had on Chad as he made his way out:
I didn’t actually see it, but I kinda heard it on TV. I saw the guys’ faces when they came back to get me for my fight. But it just makes you want to go out and do it even harder for him. Chris is not just a teammate he’s a friend, so you want pick it up for him.
Laprise sure did pick it up, getting his submission win in the first round with a beautiful display of ground fighting that we haven’t seen from the knockout artist.
He was a lot bigger than me. He came in on fight night about 20-pounds on me but I had trained off my back for months for this fight. I drilled getting to the cage and wall walking up so that’s exactly what I did in the fight.
Laprise then went into how he got the choke:
He’s a good wrestler and he can take you down but he had a tendency to leave his head down and lay on you a bit, so I knew if he got me to my back that I was going to go for that choke and it was right there so.
I was lucky because it’s a lot easier to get a guy early because he isn’t as slippery as the later rounds. It was there early so I took it. I had to work it a bit, but I knew I had it right away and I knew that if he didn’t tap he would go out and he pretty much did just as the ref came in.
It was a pivotal win for Laprise, as it gives him his first win in Bellator and sets him up nicely for what’s to come in the year ahead.
Luckily because of my win, I am talking to a few places right now and I would like to fight for Bellator again. They treated me just unbelievably first-class so I hope I can fight for them again. I am pretty much 100-percent healthy after that fight so I could fight in a month in Rama if the opponent was right.
I asked him who that opponent would be but he wouldn’t bite.
“I just want to build my record this year with good fighters and fights. That’s what I am looking to do. I would love for it to be for Bellator, I don’t care if I have to travel around to fight.”
Laprise is now off to British Columbia, but only for a couple of days. He is a hard man to keep out of the gym.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA, MMA Editor at CKSN.ca and guest blogger for Sportsnet.ca.
Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.
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