Bader disappointed with no-contest ending
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Bellator dual-weight champion Ryan Bader nearly got into two skirmishes over the weekend at SAP Center, but neither his scheduled fight nor the brawl that nearly happened afterward came to any sort of satisfying conclusion.
First, there was the matter of Bader’s Bellator 226 main event Saturday night, in which he defended his heavyweight title against France’s Cheick Kongo.
That one went into the books as a nocontest just 3:25 into the opening round due to Bader’s eye poke of Kongo, which was ruled accidental.
Then, as Bader (27-5) was getting ready to leave the cage, one of Kongo’s training partners, former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, accused Bader of deliberately poking Kongo (30-10-2) in the left eye. Bader and Jackson nearly came to blows as the argument escalated before police and cornermen separated the duo.
“He thinks I did that on purpose?” an incredulous Bader asked about Jackson’s claim. “I was beating his ass and he thinks I did that on purpose so I can get out of there? No. You know. I was two minutes away from finishing him and he took the easy way out. And he knew it. I felt it. I felt him start dwindling and that was his shot, you know?”
Indeed, there’s little dispute Bader was winning the fight handily before the accidental foul ended things. He pushed the pace from the outset, rocking the 44-year-old Kongo with a stiff jab and a pair of crisp left hooks.
Bader, a former collegiate wrestler at Arizona State, used his grappling skills to initiate the clinch and trip Kongo to the mat. From there, he worked Kongo over on the ground. And when Kongo sat up against the fence in an attempt to improve his position and get back to his feet, Bader opened up with offense, including an uppercut which landed solid, before the poke to Kongo’s left eye as he attempted to shift his position.
“I felt like I was getting the better of him everywhere, standing, every punch I threw pretty much wobbled him a little bit,” Bader said. “So, I don’t know, it just sucks. I felt like he took that win away from me, you know?”
As for Jackson, Bader, who also holds the Bellator light heavyweight championship, doesn’t feel any big rush to let Jackson troll his way into a title fight.
For one thing, the duo fought in the UFC in 2012, a bout Bader won via unanimous decision. For another, Jackson, 41, hasn’t exactly been knocking ’em dead in recent outings, with just one victory since 2016.
And for yet another, Jackson hasn’t been keeping in the best of shape.
“Obviously it would be a super heavyweight,” Bader quipped of a potential Jackson fight. “But sure, why not? It would be easier than the Kongo fight.”