The freshly crowned Bellator middleweight champion, Johnny Eblen, doesn’t think the promotion did enough to push him ahead of his title fight against Gegard Mousasi. His victory over Mousasi was as one-sided as it was shocking, and Eblen acknowledged on The MMA Hour that Bellator could have done more to push him as a viable opponent, rather than advertising Mousasi’s dominant career thus far.
“I felt like they could’ve pushed me a little bit more. But that’s not my job — my job is to show up, fight, beat the s*** out of people, put on a performance. I don’t know, that’s not my thing to debate how they should promote me, what they do with their show, that’s not my job. I just do what I’m supposed to do and they do what they’re supposed to do.
Upstart Eblen: Bellator Didn’t Do Enough To Push Him Pre-Mousasi Fight
I just felt like they could’ve done a little bit better of a job promoting me, and Mousasi. I feel like they were posting a lot more about Mousasi. It was more on his end, but they promoted me a little bit. Relatively speaking, not as much as Mousasi. It felt like I wasn’t getting the push I should’ve gotten, if that makes any sense.”
Ultimately, however, Eblen was grateful for the chance to fight a legend like Gegard Mousasi, who he described as “very respectful”.
“He was very respectful at weigh-ins, and I’m sure he took me seriously. I think he thought the fight was going to be easier, but I’m sure he took me seriously, trained. … I mean, he was the champion, it’s not like he didn’t train or anything.
After the fight, he actually followed me on Instagram and sent me a message saying, ‘Hey, bro you deserve this. Congratulations.’ He’s a classy dude, a good guy. He really believed he was the best middleweight in the world and on Friday, I checked him. My walkout song was Check Yourself by Ice Cube, and that’s the reason I chose that walkout song. I was like, ‘This dude is so confident right now,’ and I knew he was one of the best, but he needs to check himself before he gets wrecked, and I’m going to be the dude that wrecks him. It all played out like that.”
Do you think Johnny Eblen will get the attention he deserves, or should he do more to push himself before the public? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
