Photo credit to Bellator MMA/ Lucas Noonan
The 1 thing Bellator Champ Johnny Eblen Says Fighters Shouldn’t Do
The current Bellator Middleweight Champion, Johnny Eblen, successfully defended his title last weekend in his rematch against Fabian Edwards at the PFL’s “Battle of the Giants” event.
He’s now 16-0 and seemingly in his prime for mixed martial arts. The 32-year-old Eblen knows the shelf life of a professional athlete–especially in combat sports doesn’t last forever. With another victory behind him, Eblen was asked about his thoughts on Donald Cerrone returning to MMA for a few more fights and he said something many fans might be thinking, but don’t want to say.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to retire, take a bunch of steroids, and then come back and fight again,” said Eblen of Cerrone returning to MMA.
He added, “It’s not a good look man. You know I think Conor [McGregor] paved the way and I think he’s influencing a lot of other people to do it, and I think people are trying to fight past their prime and use all these substances, and it’s just not natural, it’s not good. Your brain doesn’t heal from steroids so all that CTE just adds up.”
Eblen closed his statement by saying he’s against steroids and people using them to fight past their prime.
McGregor stepped away from MMA twice; once to compete in boxing against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, and again after going 1-3 when he returned to the UFC in 2018 losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov, and twice to Dustin Poirier. In that last bout, he sustained an injury that required surgery to repair.
He hasn’t fought since.
While McGregor has been back in the testing pool for a while, you’d be hard-pressed to wonder why Eblen made the comments he made.
If you would like to see Eblen’s full scrum, you can view it on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel.
