Mike Richman scored his third first-round victory in four Bellator fights when he stopped Mitch Jackson in their Season 8 featherweight tournament bout on Feb. 7. MIke has the following to say on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show.
“It was mostly just his training partners, his coach, saying, ‘Oh, Mike Richman is a bum. He fights bums. He has a padded record. He’s being coddled.’ This was three years ago, whatever, and then there’s always just kind of been the rivalry,” Richman told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “I’ve always wanted to fight him. Nothing ever materialized. It felt really good to show a lot of the Minnesota fans that I’m a far superior fighter now. He should have fought me three years ago. He probably would have had a better chance then.”
“I just to love to get in there and fight,” Richman said. “I love to stay in the pocket. I love to be close and I love to exchange and I just love to fight, to just straight-up fight. I wasn’t going to be gun-shy. I’m extremely confident in my chin.”
After all, it wasn’t his chin that Shamhalaev hit.
“Shamhalaev caught me square in my eyeball,” Richman said. “It was one of those weird shots I’ve never experienced. I thought my eyeball popped when he hit me. That was like the first thing he hit. If I were to fight Shamhalaev again, I’d stand in the pocket and I’d be looking to take his head off.”
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Props:Sherdog.com
