Johnny
Eblen successfully defended his middleweight title against
Fabian
Edwards in the main event at
Bellator 299 at the 3Arena in Dublin on Saturday.
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Despite being split open and subsequently rocked by Edwards, Eblen
turned the tide with a huge right hand in Round 3 and followed it
up with some vicious ground-and-pound to record a knockout victory,
extending his perfect record to 14-0.
Fueled by the bad blood they shared in the lead-up, Eblen took the
chance to speak his mind while towering above his fallen opponent.
This prompted Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight title
holder Leon
Edwards to come to his brother Fabian’s defense, leading to a
heated exchange of words with Eblen.
However, Eblen doesn’t have any serious bad blood with “Rocky” and
claims to have “squashed the beef” backstage. The Bellator
middleweight champ is even rooting for Edwards in the UFC champ’s
upcoming title defense against Colby
Covington at UFC 296.
“Lot of emotions bro,” Eblen said during a post-fight media
session. “I mean, his brother is a great fighter. I honestly hope
he beats Colby. I f—-ing hate Colby, that dude sucks.
“But yeah, I wanna fight him [Leon Edwards] too. He’s one of the
best guys in the world and I wanna prove that I’m one of the best
in the world. You gotta fight everybody. He’s not in my weight
class but I feel like he might go up to [185 pounds] eventually.
But I went over after and told him, ‘Hey man, sorry my emotions
were high’ and I squashed the beef. I don’t have anything wrong
with him. I just wanna fight the guy.”