Bellator 180: “Sonnen vs. Silva” heads to the sports mecca of Madison Square Garden in New York, N.Y., on June 24, 2017, featuring the long-awaited grudge match between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva in the pay-per-view (PPV) main event of the evening.
Elsewhere on the PPV card, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Lorenz Larkin will challenge Welterweight champion Douglas Lima in his promotional debut. And while he was recently promoting that fight on Submission Radio “The Monsoon” couldn’t help but take a few shots at Rory MacDonald, too.
“He won't 'take my health' (laughs). And... God, sorry guys, I just can't get over how corny that shit was. I don't know if he came up with that or he read it on the teleprompter, but I don't know, man. It'd probably feel a little better just to really shut him up or shut up that teleprompter so he never has to read it a day in his life again.”
The trash talking has spilled over to social media, where MacDonald’s fans seem more focused on Larkin than on “Red King” getting the winner of the title fight.
“I almost said something to this fan and I was like gonna be the biggest dick ever because I thought this fan was talking mad (shit). He was like, 'Rory's gonna take your health LOL.’ And then I was like, what? And I was gonna write back, like, 'okay, yeah, we'll see.’ And then a couple more came through just like a bunch of emojis like, 'he's gonna take your health.' And then I was like, what the hell is everybody talking about? Because where I watched the fights at, it was like a bar so I couldn't hear him talking afterward, I just watched the fight. So then when I finally seen it, I was like are you kidding me? I was like, how corny was that? Who says that?”
Before Larkin can “shut up” his fellow former UFC contender he needs to focus on the champion, Lima, a man with only two losses (by decision) in his entire Bellator career, and a proven finisher with 13 career knockouts and 11 submissions. Larkin says that he’s ready for everything.
“The good thing I feel about this fight is he's not gonna show me anything I haven't seen before. You know what I mean? And he's just tough, and that's hard in itself. There's not too many -- I know it's weird to say that in MMA, but there's not a lot of tough guys. There's a lot of fighters, there's a lot of tough guys, but he's tough and he's a champion for a reason and he has a lot of skills for him. I've fought a lot of guys like him in the past. I've fought heavy punchers, I've fought guys with good stand-up, I've fought guys with good jits. So it's nothing that I don't think I've seen. His style is something that I've seen before.”
We’ll find out June 24 if Lima can show Larkin something he hasn’t seen before.
To check out the latest Bellator MMA-related news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive news archive right here.
Get the latest gear
