Bellator’s May 2nd PPV, the company’s first outing in the PPV arena is co-headlined by the Lightweight title bout between Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez and the grudge match between Quinton Jackson and Mo Lawal, but it isn’t until recently that the rest of the card was announced. Of particular interest is the Bantamweight Title bout between chalenger Joe Warren and budding champion Eduardo Dantas. Warren, who is clearly a fighter Bellator has invested in and wants to succeed, has quietly won 3 matches in a row including a season 9 tournament since going 0-2 and re-thinking his approach to MMA.
The matchup itself is a great fight. Often wen speaking of the 25 year old Dantas, people bring up his KO loss to Tyson Nam, but he is 9-1 going back to 2009 and he is part of the Nova Uniao team that has produced UFC titlists Renan Barao and Jose Aldo. Though it would be unfair to rate him with those pound for pound top guys, being around Barao and Aldo and that atmosphere makes Dantas a very dangerous 25 year old champion.
For Warren the story is different, and though he is a top athlete, there are a lot of red flags around him. First of all, he is 37 years old and though a wrestling champion, he is out of that sport for drug tests (yeah, its pot and it aint that big a deal). In his Bellator career, he has had a fight postponed for reasons that were explained as ‘concussion in training’ but Warren’s overall attitude and behavior around that incident were not smart, and he displayed the arrogance of a fighter who is used to getting his way.
He is a danger to win against Dantas. After the reality show (another huge Bellator success, right up there with their wrestling cross overs) Warren seemed to realize MMA was deep waters and if he took it seriously, he is a dangerous athlete who can advance a lot with a crash course in a year. But ten years from now, it will be Dantas we are talking about, not Joe Warren.
