Tag: Ben Saunders

Bellator Welterweight Ben Saunders a Fan and Student of the Game

It takes one to know one. Maybe that’s why Bellator welterweight Ben Saunders knows exactly what fight fans want.  “I was 10 when I saw the first UFC fight,” Saunders said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “I’ve pai…

It takes one to know one. Maybe that’s why Bellator welterweight Ben Saunders knows exactly what fight fans want. 

“I was 10 when I saw the first UFC fight,” Saunders said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “I’ve paid attention to the sport for a long time. I always knew it was going to blow up. I can bring that fan mentality to my own fights because I remember what it was like to be one.”

It’s also probably why he’ll probably never participate in a boring fight, at least not if he has anything to say about it. And it’s why plenty of fans will watch Saunders (14-5-2) fight Koffi Adzitso (18-9) Thursday night at Bellator 86. It is the quarterfinal round of Bellator‘s latest welterweight tournament, the winner of which will receive a date with champion Ben Askren.

Florida-native Saunders, whose in-cage calling card is a pair of lethal knees, entered MMA on the ground floor and grew alongside the sport. With excitement in his voice, he recalled hours spent in chat rooms during the early days, talking with other fans. One conversation in particular provided a turning point in Saunders’ life.  

“Back in like 2001, I’d be on MMA Underground and all those discussion boards, and I remember talking to [UFC veteran] Din Thomas on AOL Instant Messenger,” Saunders said. “There was only one MMA school in all of Florida, and it was his. It was like a ghettofied boxing gym. I’d clean the mats so I could train because I couldn’t afford to pay for it.”

Sounds like it was a good thing he followed through. Like many who find martial arts, Saunders was initially a bit of a wayward soul who needed an outlet.

“There’s something sadistic inside me, man,” Saunders said. “I would say I have some inner demons that through martial arts I’m able to somewhat control. I’ve learned how to control my temperament and my anger. It’s important because I remember how agitated or short-fused me and other men in my family could be.”

Saunders, a former contestant on The Ultimate Fighter who amassed a 4-3 record in the UFC, described a need to continue learning. The phrase “student of the game” comes to mind. Far beyond the Muay Thai attack for which he’s primarily known, Saunders said he has explored esoteric disciplines like Indonesian Pencak Silat, French Savate and Filipino Kali, not to mention Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do style, for which he’s long maintained an admiration.

“I look at all the martial arts,” Saunders said. “I want to be an all-around martial artist. I like to go outside the spectrum. There’s not a straight path to making it work. I’m definitely looking to showcase cool stuff and bring something new to the table. I want to get people thinking and looking and talking.”

He also said he wants to be an ambassador for MMA and martial arts in general, and to represent and share the history of the sport.

“I have a bigger purpose than just fighting and being a champion,” Saunders said. “I want to impact as many lives and touch as many people as possible. I try to remember the Chute Boxe days, the Wanderlei Silvas and the Shoguns. They would go out and just fight; win, lose or draw, it didn’t matter.”

His reference to the days of no-holds-barred fighting is telling. Saunders is a fan first, and as such it’s the sheer juice of the action that motivates Saunders most, and it’s his commitment to that action that endears him to fans.

“It’s a chess game. You’re always thinking, if he does this, I’ve got three counters. You’re always choosing between offense and defense. I’m just refining my game so no one can get that checkmate on me anymore,” Saunders said. “I get to do in the cage what I don’t get to do anywhere else. I get to take all my pads off and just see how quickly I can destroy this other person. There’s no other good way to test myself.”

Scott Harris is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report. All quotes obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The Worst Bellator Beatdowns

While this article could probably stretch vast literary expanses, I’m going to keep things simple and highlight the ugliest, most vicious beatdowns in Bellator’s history that leap directly to my mind. While you won’t see every Hector …

While this article could probably stretch vast literary expanses, I’m going to keep things simple and highlight the ugliest, most vicious beatdowns in Bellator’s history that leap directly to my mind.

While you won’t see every Hector Lombard finish featured, or ever Pat Curran destruction on display, you’ll get the best of both, and much more.

Check out eight of Bellator’s nastiest beatings.

Begin Slideshow

Booking Roundup: Bellator Welterweight Tournament Set, Story/Edwards Get Next Opponents


(It took forty minutes and 13 Vodka cranberries before War Machine realized that this wasn’t the Jenna Jameson cutout he had ordered.) 

Although Bellator’s current bidding war with Eddie Alvarez has snagged all of the headlines, the promotion actually does have a card worth discussing at the end of the month in Bellator 86. Including King Mo’s promotional debut and a headlining welterweight title fight between Ben Askren and…WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? DON’T YOU DARE LOOK AWAY FROM ME. Askren will be fighting Karl Amoussou, who stands a better chance at ending the most uneventful title reign in MMA history than most of Askren’s challengers so far. I’M SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS.

In news you might define as “exciting,” elsewhere on the card will be the first round of action in Bellator’s next welterweight tournament, which features such former tournament participants as Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima, and Raul Amaya taking on Koffi Adzisto, Michail Tsarev, and Jose Reyes respectively. Also booked for the tourney is cursed in America fighter and recipient of truly the worst beating of 2012, Marius Zaromskis, who will be squaring off against Brent Weedman. Nearly half of these participants have faced one another before (Saunders has fought Amaya and Lima, who has fought Weedman) and six of the eight men have been knocked out of a Bellator welterweight tournament before. I’m not sure what to do with that information, but there it is.

As we know, both War Machine and Paul Daley were pulled from the tourney following a knee injury and a pub brawl, respectively. And in the twisted nightmare this universe has truly become, War Machine was not responsible for the latter. Bellator 86 goes down from the Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on January 23rd.

And in UFC fight booking news…


(It took forty minutes and 13 Vodka cranberries before War Machine realized that this wasn’t the Jenna Jameson cutout he had ordered.) 

Although Bellator’s current bidding war with Eddie Alvarez has snagged all of the headlines, the promotion actually does have a card worth discussing at the end of the month in Bellator 86. Including King Mo’s promotional debut and a headlining welterweight title fight between Ben Askren and…WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? DON’T YOU DARE LOOK AWAY FROM ME. Askren will be fighting Karl Amoussou, who stands a better chance at ending the most uneventful title reign in MMA history than most of Askren’s challengers so far. I’M SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS.

In news you might define as “exciting,” elsewhere on the card will be the first round of action in Bellator’s next welterweight tournament, which features such former tournament participants as Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima, and Raul Amaya taking on Koffi Adzisto, Michail Tsarev, and Jose Reyes respectively. Also booked for the tourney is cursed in America fighter and recipient of truly the worst beating of 2012, Marius Zaromskis, who will be squaring off against Brent Weedman. Nearly half of these participants have faced one another before (Saunders has fought Amaya and Lima, who has fought Weedman) and six of the eight men have been knocked out of a Bellator welterweight tournament before. I’m not sure what to do with that information, but there it is.

As we know, both War Machine and Paul Daley were pulled from the tourney following a knee injury and a pub brawl, respectively. And in the twisted nightmare this universe has truly become, War Machine was not responsible for the latter. Bellator 86 goes down from the Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on January 23rd.

And in UFC fight booking news…

After having his brains literally squeezed through his nose by Demian Maia at UFC 153, Rick Story has been booked in a likely win or GTFO match against Canadian brawler Sean Pierson at UFC 158. After compiling an incredible 6-1 run to start his UFC career, Story has seemingly fallen apart at the wheels since being upset by Charlie Brenneman at UFC Live 4. He’s now dropped 3 of his last 4, with his lone victory coming against UFC newcomer Brock Jardine last June. Pierson, on the other hand, has had a slight career turnaround as of late, following up a pair of tough losses to Jake Ellenberger and Dong Hyun Kim in 2011 with a two-fight streak of his own in 2012.

UFC 158 transpires at the Bell Centre in Montreal on March 16th.

UFC newcomer Isaac Vallie-Flagg is set for the toughest test of his career at UFC 156, where he will take on 60 fight veteran Yves Edwards. The “Thugjitsu Master” most recently did what no man has been able to do when he knocked out Jeremy Stephens at UFC on FOX 5. While it’s quite a feat considering who Stephens has faced, Edwards will have a hell of a fight on his hands in Vallie-Flagg, a Jackson’s MMA product who has not dropped a fight since October of 2007.

Now here’s a supercut of “Pre-Mortem One Liners” I stumbled across earlier today, for those of you who cared enough to read all the way to the bottom of this article.

–J. Jones

Bellator Premieres “Vote for the Fight” for Spike Debut Featuring War Machine, Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima, and Paul Daley

Although the UFC has easily secured the top position for “Most Interesting News of the Day,” their rivals over at Bellator have recently revealed a pretty unique feature of their own for their upcoming season on Spike TV. Besides the fact that they are completely exploiting War Machine’s less than positive personal history as a hype tool for his promotional debut*[AWESOME], Bjorn and the boys have debuted an interactive web series dubbed “Vote for the Fight,” which allows you to, wait for it, vote for the very first fight of their 2013 season on Spike TV.

Fans will be given the option to match up any of the following four fighters: Ben Saunders, Paul Daley, Douglas Lima, and our boy War Machine. In addition, Spike TV will be airing a new episode of the web series — which will provide some background and behind-the-scenes info on each of the participants — each Thursday.

Part 1 is above and Part 2 awaits you after the jump.

Although the UFC has easily secured the top position for “Most Interesting News of the Day,” their rivals over at Bellator have recently revealed a pretty unique feature of their own for their upcoming season on Spike TV. Besides the fact that they are completely exploiting War Machine’s less than positive personal history as a hype tool for his promotional debut*[AWESOME], Bjorn and the boys have debuted an interactive web series dubbed “Vote for the Fight,” which allows you to, wait for it, vote for the very first fight of their 2013 season on Spike TV.

Fans will be given the option to match up any of the following four fighters: Ben Saunders, Paul Daley, Douglas Lima, and our boy War Machine. In addition, Spike TV will be airing a new episode of the web series — which will provide some background and behind-the-scenes info on each of the participants — each Thursday.

An interesting side note is that none of these gentlemen will be appearing in Bellator’s next welterweight tournament. In fact, only two of them have ever met inside the cage before — Lima and Saunders — with Lima defeating Saunders by second round knockout at Bellator 57. One would think that Saunders would want a chance to earn some redemption against Lima or possibly face off against his fellow TUF 6 alum in War Machine, but according to his Twitter account, Saunders would much rather test the waters against arguably the most dangerous striker of them all: Paul “Semtex” Daley, who is fresh off a first round stomping of Rudy Bears in his Bellator debut. Lima, on the other hand, recently rebounded from his failed title bid against Ben Azzzzkren with a first round TKO win over Jacob Ortiz at Bellator 79.

But you don’t care about any of that. What you care about is who will War Machine be fighting next and will he actually make it to said fight without incarcerating himself in the mean time. The last time Machine aka Prison Mike was released from the clink, he broke Roger Huerta’s ribs and TKO’d that nail painting ninny in the third round, so you best believe that whoever he faces is going to get torn through like a bologna sandwich. We’d prefer if that someone was Askren, because everyone knows that the only one way to defend his narcolepsy-inducing lay-n-pray is with the savage, prison-based form of fighting known only as ape-n-rape, which War Machine has all but mastered by this point in his career. But we digress.

So what do you think, Potato Nation? Is Bellator’s new interactive feature a good thing for fans, or will they only screw things up worse than when they picked David Cook over David Archuleta? BUT D-ARCH WAS SOOO DREAMY!!

*Because when you think about it, prison is basically a limitless training facility to improve your MMA game if your willing to fork over the sanctity of your butthole every now and again. Reach for the stars, kids!

–J. Jones

Bellator Holds Fan Vote to Determine First Fight on SPIKE

SPIKE will start their 2013 debut of Bellator with a main card bout featuring some of the promotion’s most popular welterweight fighters.As announced on Friday, Bellator will be hosting a “Vote For The Fight” campaign. Once the web series begins, it wi…

SPIKE will start their 2013 debut of Bellator with a main card bout featuring some of the promotion’s most popular welterweight fighters.

As announced on Friday, Bellator will be hosting a “Vote For The Fight” campaign. Once the web series begins, it will follow the training camps of Paul Daley, Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima and Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver.

Depending on fan votes, two of those four fighters will have the distinction of being part of the first Bellator fight broadcast on SPIKE in 2013.

UFC and Strikeforce veteran Daley (30-12-2) made his debut with the company at Bellator 72, defeating his opponent by technical knockout in the first round. Since being cut from the UFC after attempting to hit Josh Koscheck after the end of their UFC 113 title eliminator, Daley has gone 7-3 in his last 11 fights. 

Saunders, another UFC veteran, is currently 5-2 in Bellator with an overall 14-5-2 record. Like Daley, he also got back into the win column at Bellator 72 with a first-round knockout win over Brian Warren, who entered the match on a five-fight winning streak. 

Lima recently won Bellator’s Season 5 Welterweight Tournament, but had a nine-fight winning streak snapped by champion Ben Askren. Lima rebounded this weekend at Bellator 79 by notching a third-round TKO victory, improving his professional MMA record to 22-5.

War Machine carries a 12-4 record, with his most recent win coming against Roger Huerta in November 2011. War Machine has previously competed twice in the UFC, where he ended a 1-1 stint with a first-round submission loss to Yoshiyuki Yoshida.

War Machine was later cut from the UFC not long after making public comments about former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner, who died in 2008 due to heat exposure during a camping trip in the desert region west of Palo Verde, California.

War Machine maintained to MMA Junkie that he suspected Tanner committed suicide, claiming that a “depressed” Tanner “never made [expletive] for money” and had “no chance for a comeback” after losing to Ultimate Fighter Season 3 winner Kendall Grove.

However, War Machine additionally drew the ire of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva after turning down a fight, which prematurely ended his 10-fight contract with the promotion:  

“Joe Silva — he was pretty much on a power trip,” War Machine said. “He was like, ‘I already told you that I already have [Brandon Wolff] for War Machine. I don’t know who he is thinking he’s negotiating with me. You know what? I’m sick of this guy.’ Then he brought up the Evan Tanner thing. ‘He made a dumbass comment on Evan Tanner. He’s not supporting the UFC. You know what? War Machine is cut.’ And they cut me.”

After multiple arrests in Las Vegas and at least two accounts of alleged assault with a deadly weapon, War Machine was eventually imprisoned in the San Diego’s George Bailey Detention Facility for two years. He was released from jail on October 29, 2012.

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Ben Saunders Wouldn’t Mind If Bellator Tourney Fights Were Held in One Night

Back in the inception of the UFC in 1993 and on some Pride cards, fights were held in a one night tournament style. Now with athletic commissions overseeing the sport and Pride no longer being around, we don’t see that format anymore. If Ben Saunders h…

Back in the inception of the UFC in 1993 and on some Pride cards, fights were held in a one night tournament style. Now with athletic commissions overseeing the sport and Pride no longer being around, we don’t see that format anymore. If Ben Saunders had a say, we would see that format once again.

Saunders (13-5, 4-2 BFC) returns to the Bellator cage tonight as he squares off against MMA veteran Brian Warren (18-15 MMA, 0-0 BFC) at Bellator 72 in a catchweight fight of 178 pounds. The fight will headline preliminary portion of the card, which you on see on Spike.com

Saunders feels if Bellator went to that format, it would be a battle to how strong a fighter really is.

“It’s probably of the most hardcore things you can do in the fight game that is,” Saunders told Bleacher Report. “The only thing that maybe come to a more hardcore level is three fights in 1 night.  A lot of us honestly if you ask people in Bellator, they might tell you because I will tell you how. I would rather try and to test the waters and see. Everything’s by chance. Everything is circumstance.

“You don’t know what happens in a fight. You don’t know what happens with injuries in camp. You don’t know everything that’s going on. it’s almost like if your doing it all in one night, your only doing one weight cut all in one night. The chance is still there. Do you get injured in one of your fights? Does your opponent get injured in one fight?

“It really comes down to just mental toughness. Push through it and try to make it work. You also got to realize is the reality of it and you know your mind can push you through a million things, but if the body can’t do it for whatever reason there might be issues overcoming. That’s the sport as far as the whole tournament format goes. It’s just a battle of wills, a circumstantial chance.”

Saunders has fought in two tournaments in Bellator with making the finals in his first go around and the semi-finals last season. He feels the Bellator tournament style has showed how strong he really is.

“I honestly thought I was always a mentally strong fight,” Saunders states. “it was more like the test to see how strong you are. That’s the same thing as the fight game in general. Being able to see how good you are. Testing yourself against the best in the world. What people don’t understand is those five losses that I might have are so huge. If I actually look at what it actually means.

“If I look at how I lost them and really try to completely analyze things like that, I’m able to break down my strengths, my weaknesses. I get to really see things. I think it just definitely helps out.”

The card tonight takes place in Tampa, Florida, which isn’t too far from where Saunders trains at with American Top Team in Orlando. That was the only reason Saunders took this fight.

“That was the main reason and the only reason when they asked me to be on the card that I pretty much accepted because it was in Florida,” Saunders stated. “I never get to fight in Florida. I got to fight in a local WEF show before I signed with Bellator. Other than that, it was three years before I fought in Florida before that. My career coming up was all Florida based.

“I definitely miss being able to fight in front of my friends, my family, close fans, students and my teammates. It’s a completely different atmosphere when your at home. That definitely gave me the incentive to fight and train my butt off to come here and put on a phenominal perfomance for all of them.”

You can listen to entire interview with Ben Saunders here.

You can also follow me on Twitter @fightclubchi.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com