Ryan Bader ‘over’ fighting Daniel Cormier
Ryan Bader is the first ever champ-champ in Bellator’s history.
He was the light heavyweight champion and entered the heavyweight Grand Prix. To start off the tournament he knocked out King Mo in just seconds, then defeated Matt Mitrione before knocking out Fedor Emelianenko in just over 30 seconds. To beat Fedor he used a left overhand and following the fight Bader said the gameplan was to use that punch as they knew they could catch Fedor.
“You know what? I saw that moment,” Bader said Saturday night at Bellator 214’s post-fight press conference. “And you can ask my team, we practiced that moment a lot. I saw that punch was going to do it. You can’t see his right hand because he throws from his hip. He’s very hard to see, he throws hard. But in doing so, you leave yourself exposed. And we felt that he was going to respect my wrestling a lot, and I could put one up top. If you look through any of the footage on the Countdown shows and all of that kind of stuff, we were practicing that punch the whole time. Throwing a jab, getting our distance, and then feinting and throwing that left hook, and we knew he’d be there.
