On the night of Friday, May 2nd, 2014, the Showboat Casino in Atlantic City will house a bunch of crazed-lunatics for Bellator 118. Most will come to see the main event that night (Silva vs Warren), but many will also have a close eye on a specific under-card match-up.
Bellator upstart Mike “The Irish Cannon” Bannon (5-1) will take on a fresh-face in Sidney Outlaw (2-0) in the light-weight division, and the “Bannon-Following” will be out in full-force.
Under-card fights do not usually create the same intensity as main-card fights do, but there’s always something strange in the air when it comes to a Bannon-fight. The atmosphere becomes electrified and the fighter (Bannon) and crowd seem to feed off each other’s energy.
This will mark Sidney Outlaw’s first Bellator appearance as he’ll look to stifle that energy. His professional MMA record is 2-0 and at only 22 years of age is looking to make a splash. Outlaw fights out of Renzo-Gracie Jui-Jitsu of Pennsylvania and his two professional fights have screamed the word “balance.”
In early 2013 he defeated Mtume Goodrum by TKO (Punches) 4:04 into round-two. His second fight was a few months later as he took down Steve Simms with a rear-naked-choke in the third-round, Sherdog.
While the balance of both endings are impressive, the fact that he has not fought since June of 2013 must be considered as rust could play an important factor.
A little under a year ago, Mike Bannon lost is only professional fight at the Bellator Championships 77. He was down and he was out. He needed something to spark that fighting-soul everybody has now fallen in love with.
Enter Dean “The Welsh Road Warrior” Williams.
Williams is a former WBF Intercontinental Cruiserweight title holder. He’s sparred with over 30 world champions in his career including Larry Holmes, Thomas Hearns and Tim Witherspoon, notes Wales Online.
Throughout his entire life he’s been a fighter, pure and simple. Growing up in the rough streets of Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, he had very little choice. Aside from Boxing Dean’s been a street fighter and trained and competed in Judo, Kung Fu and Krav Maga.
To say fighting is in his blood would be a gross-understatement. His sole-intention now is to take Mike Bannon to the top of the MMA-World.
Bannon’s last fight proved this combination of Bannon and Williams is a very dangerous team. To mix the ground specialty of Bannon and the fight-smarts of Williams is down-right scary.
The experts all know that Bannon is a freak-magician on the ground. After his last fight in Bellator 109 most now realize he’s a dual-threat. This includes Ahsan Abdullah, his unfortunate-opponent that night.
“The Irish Cannon” disposed of Abdullah only 1:51 into the first-round with an arm-triangle choke. For Bannon, this now makes five-different submission techniques successful in all five of his victories.
Despite the dominance on the ground though, Bannon came out swinging and proved that his hands are for real as well. It seemed to catch Abdullah off-guard.
It is easy to realize why Bannon fights out of the “Welsh Road Warrior Fight Camp.” Train hard, fight easy is their motto.
It does not get much easier than finishing a guy only 1:51 into a fight: Or does it for Mike Bannon?
With both fighters entering the biggest fight of their career, Outlaw better hope he is not as unfortunate as the last guy who took on the “Irish Cannon.”