Former champ Joe Warren plans return at bantamweight – with Bellator boss's blessing

Bjorn Rebney wasn't happy. Far from it.

Just a few feet away from him, his featherweight title was changing hands. He wasn't upset he had a new titleholder to promote, but he was far from happy with how his champ was taken out – taking what was fairly universally agreed to be far more punishment than was necessary.

But with Bellator 60 and Joe Warren's brutal knockout loss to Pat Curran in the rearview mirror, Rebney said Warren is ready to get back to work.

Warren (7-3 MMA, 5-2 BFC) held his own against Curran (17-4 MMA, 7-1 BFC) for two rounds in the main event of Bellator 60 in Hammond, Ind., not far from Curran's stomping grounds north of Chicago. In fact, Curran's cousin, UFC vet Jeff Curran, told the challenger before the third round that had had lost the first two frames.

But in the third, Curran turned up the heat, and with Warren against the fence, Curran landed blow after blow to Warren's head – with the cage appearing to help keep him upright when he surely was out on his feet. With one final uppercut, and with Curran looking to referee Jeff Malott, seemingly begging him to stop it, Warren finally slumped to the canvas.

"It's the only time I can remember sitting cageside where I actually threw my headset off and started screaming," Rebney recently told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "It was hard to watch. There are moments in time where you see athletes freeze, and there we saw a referee freeze. For some reason, he was not reacting to it. I don't know if it was the lights or the cameras or what it was, but it was a very poor job. It should've been stopped five, six seconds or more before it was stopped."

Perhaps it was Warren's sheer determination that helped keep him standing so long while absorbing Curran's punishment. He was undersized at featherweight, fighting above his natural 135-pound class the way he did in DREAM – yet he became the promotion's 145-pound champion.

Warren toyed with the drop to bantamweight even before the Curran fight when he entered Bellator's Season 5 bantamweight tournament, hoping to get a shot at the 135-pound title to go with the featherweight belt he won in June 2010. But he was knocked out by Alexis Vila in the first round.

After the loss to Curran – which resulted, his manager said, in a concussion – Warren took some time off and now wants to return and give it one more crack at bantamweight.

"He wants to fight again," Rebney said. "Thankfully, he took enough time off. Given his style, there's no question about Joe Warren's heart. He wants to get back on track and see where he can take it."

Rebney said Warren appears to have gone through some reality checks and balances before making his decision to come back. But his enthusiasm to get back in the cage is winning out.

"He's cognizant of the fact he's older and there's not much of a window left," Rebney said. "But he's also fairly realistic. He goes, 'I'm not getting any younger. That's not the way I want to go out. I'd like to give it one more run at '35. My losses were one crazy shot, and I fought Pat Curran, arguably the best featherweight in the world. It's not my right weight, but I was the champ and I had to defend. Can I have one more shot at '35?'

"With a guy with that kind of heart, I can't at this point say to him, 'No, I'm not going to give you another shot.' He's been awesome, and he's a warrior, so you give him another shot and we'll see. Hopefully he can turn it around and the outcome isn't what it's been the last couple."

http://mmajunkie.com/news/30565/former-champ-joe-warren-plans-return-at-bantamweight-with-bellator-bosss-blessing.mma

Wilson Reis. Book it.

Maybe even L.C. Davis.

^^^^^Wilson been gone from bellator for some time now. Di not know LC dropped to 135

ZuffaKiller wrote:^^^^^Wilson been gone from bellator for some time now. Di not know LC dropped to 135

They could always sign Wilson to a one-off deal like they did for Neer.
L.C. dropped to 135 over the summer, although his partnership with Titan could pose problems.

I'd honestly like to see them pick up someone from Shooto. Someone like Yuji Hoshino.

They could but they don't need wilson I would rather they get someone like Yusup Saadulaev