EXCLUSIVE: Raufeon Stots talks signing with Bellator, ready to debut ASAP
Raufeon Stots checks in to discuss signing an exclusive, multi-fight contract with Bellator MMA on Wednesday. The 30-year-old brings a four-fight winning streak, and a 12-1 pro record into Bellator’s bantamweight division.
“Supa” talks about how the conversations began when he joined Emmanuel Sanchez during the Bellator 226 fight week in July, how Big John McCarthy got the ball rolling, how he is thrilled with the numbers in the new four-fight contract, feeling like he should’ve signed with Bellator years ago, how the people closest to him kept telling him that his time was coming, how his fight with Alexander Keshtov at CFFC 79 will no longer happen after signing the deal, who he would like to fight in the Bellator cage, wanting to debut as soon as possible — even this month when the organization heads to Mohegan Sun for back-to-back cards — a message to his longtime supporters and much more.
Stots also discusses what putting pen to paper felt like on Wednesday after years of himself and others in the MMA community pushing for the UFC to sign him for the last few years.
“Everyone else should feel like a weight is lifted off of their shoulders,” Stots laughingly told MyMMANews.com. “I had a lot of people going to bat for me so I’m glad I got signed to a big show. It definitely feels like a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I feel like I can spread my wings now, because everybody already knows how good I am. Nobody wanted to fight me at the level we were at. The people that were at the higher level were trying to duck and dodge me, too. So I’m happy to have a home, to have a route to be a world champion.”
Check out the full exclusive interview with Raufeon Stots, the newest member of the Bellator MMA bantamweight division in the video above.
