I think Primus vs Santos could be dark horse for Fight of the Night
Bellator 153: Koreshkov vs. Henderson Discussion - 4/22/16
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Is primus another fighter or is it a nickname for Ward?
Another fighter.
View: https://youtu.be/AFZSIODw7CM
And here's an article on the guy he's fighting.
After loss in Bellator debut, Gleristone Santos banking on experience vs. Primus
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@psychicdeath writes up Primus for us ahead of tonight's scrap.Bellator 153: Brent Primus' Roundabout Path to the Bellator Cage
4/22/2016
Comments
Dave Willford
At Bellator 153, Oregon’s Brent Primus (6-0) will face Brazil’s Gleristone Santos (27-5), better known by his nickname “Toninho Furia”, in a lightweight bout on the main card. While Primus only has six pro fights so far, he is seen as a prospect in Bellator’s 155 pound division.
Unlike a lot of mixed martial artists, Primus did not begin training at an early age in wrestling or one of the traditional martial arts. Instead, he came into the sport to cope with anger and feed his competitive nature. He had a unique childhood that later led him to martial arts. He explains, “When I was younger, me and my step-dad didn’t get along together too well, and I got kicked out of the house at like 13. We didn’t get along - we’re good now, and we love each other now - and I remember him telling me things like ‘You’re going to work at McDonald’s the rest of your life’ or ‘You’re worthless’. It kind of hurt then, but I would not change anything that happened, or what he said to me. I hear that voice in my head, ‘You’re a loser. You’ll work at MacDonald’s.’ That lit a fire in me, and made me who I am. When I’m sore and tired, I hear that voice. It made me a competitor and made me who I am. I would not change anything like that. I had to do the jobs when I was younger, a lot earlier than some people, and I was paying bills and had my own place way younger, in high school. It definitely made me grow up faster, and it made me who I am.”
Being on his own as a teenager eventually led him to jiu jitsu, through a round-about path. Instead of training first, he had his first amateur fight pretty much untrained. “I kind of had a lot of anger in me, from my step-dad, my childhood. It kind of drove me. I remember I used to get into a lot of fights when I was younger, a lot of fights. My coach, now, was like “Man, if you’re going to fight, you might as well get into a cage and make money and do things.’ So he signed me up for a cage fight. And I did not train for a day in my life. It was about two weeks out, I’m like ‘OK. I’m going to walk into this jiu jitsu gym and see what this training is all about.’ I walk in there, and just got submitted and choked out left and right by guys who were smaller than me and everything. It just blew my mind away, and I fell in love with it. Ever since then, I’m in the gym every single day. Once I started doing jiu jitsu, I was winning all the tournaments around here. The first time I went to Pan Americans, my first gi competition, I got gold. I won. I had like eight matches. I was placing in nationals, all these big tournaments, and from then on, I thought ‘I think I can go far. I think I can do something in this.’ It all kind of hit home from then.” So an impromptu amateur MMA fight led Primus to jiu jitsu, which eventually led back to a pro MMA career.
Brent Primus squares off with his opponent at Bellator 153 weigh-ins (Photo Credit: Bellator MMA)
Along the way, Primus owned a thriving landscaping business, but eventually sold that so that he could train and compete full-time. “Landscaping was awesome. I loved making my clients happy, and waking up early, and getting those checks. It was awesome, but I knew I was built for something better. Ever since I was little, I knew I would do something that wasn’t normal. I always thought I could do something that was great. I think MMA is a perfect fit for me. I like challenging myself every day, and I work my butt off. I wouldn’t change it for anything.” The move from landscaping full-time to making MMA his career brought quite a bit of improvement to his fighting game, and while he enjoyed landscaping, he’s happy with the commitment to mixed martial arts. “When I had my landscaping business, I was waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning, and wouldn’t get done until 7 at night some times. There’s really no time to train, so I’d really just bust my ass and try to get my clients done, so I could make it to the gym by 5 or 7 or whatever and make it to jiu jitsu class and everything. But now that I don’t do that and I just train all day long, the sky is the limit. I’m training all day long, and learning and learning. That’s what this sport should be about.”
Learning seems to be a key factor in his love for the sport. With six pro fights, there is still a long way to go. “This sport is so crazy, and there are so many things to learn, jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling. There’s so much to learn, and I feel like I’m learning every single day. Like I said, I’m a black belt in jiu jitsu, but sometimes I feel like a white belt. I’m learning every day, all day long. So I just think the sky is the limit, and as long as you have an open mindset to learning, no matter who you’re learning from. I can learn from a white belt, or somebody who just started. There’s so much in this sport, and I’m just trying to soak up as much information as I can every single day, with all the people I train with. One percent better, every single day.”
That quest to improve led him to visit Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone’s BMF ranch on a few occasions to help hone his skills. As Primus describes, “It was a lifetime experience. Cowboy let me go train with him and stay at his house for multiple weeks at a time. Not only seeing how they train, but just seeing how they deal with life. How they’re calm, and how they try to have fun in training camps to take their mind off of grueling training camps. I learned so much training with him, and it was the greatest experience in my training career, actually. Going to Greg Jackson’s, and hanging out with Jon Jones, Arlovski, and Cowboy, and just so many guys. I learned so much in those weeks. It was definitely a blessing.”
Brent Primus is amped for his Bellator 153 fight (Photo Credit: Bellator MMA/Eric Coleman)
All of this made quite a change from his early days in the sport. With most of his pro wins coming by submission, it was a bit surprising to find that most of the wins in his 5-1 amateur career came by way of knockout. But that just shows his growth in the sport. Primus explains his amateur days, “When I was an amateur, you know, I wasn’t training too much for my first few amateur fights. I used to have a lot of anger in me and I would get in a lot of street fights. That was just pure aggression and anger, just going in there and throwing bombs. I have a really hard right hand, and I knocked out a lot of people in like fifteen seconds. As soon as I started training and actually being a martial artist, and bowing to my instructors and getting humbled every day, it changed my game in every aspect. It changed my life, jiu jitsu did. Once I started going to tournaments and winning nationals, it definitely changed my game plan. It changed who I was. Especially once I got my black belt. I felt almost invincible. I started using my jiu jitsu and taking people down, and choking them and using my jiu jitsu against everybody.”
Most of his fights have ended in the first round, both as an amateur and a pro, going from mostly fast knockouts as an amateur to fast submissions as a pro. He sees this as a good thing now that he’s made a career in the sport. “I’m really aggressive, and my jiu jitsu style is really submission oriented. I attack, attack, attack. It kind of just happened how it did. I’m always looking for in and out. Those long battles, and getting hit, and those fifteen minute fights in the cage, are not too good for your brain, and not too good for a long career. The sooner I can get in there and get out, the better. I think with my training, with my coaches, first-round fights are possible every fight.”
His most recent fight, though, a split decision win over Derek Anderson at Bellator 141 last August, was one of those dreaded fifteen minute battles. “That was definitely a tough fight for me. The training camp going into it, I had a bunch of things happen to me. I had injuries. The first thirty seconds of that fight, I blew my rib, the cartilage, and I couldn’t fight to my game plan. Every time I threw my left hand, my rib popped out and I couldn’t breathe. Just going to decision like that and fighting fifteen hard minutes with an injury like that, was definitely a learning experience for me. I learned a lot about myself. Knowing I’m going into this fight without those injuries is crazy to me. I feel like I’m going to be a different fighter. Everybody who saw me fight in that fight, and saw my standup, I hope they think that that’s how I fight. I’m telling you, that’s not how I fight. I’m so excited to go in there and fight at 100%.”
There was talk recently about Brent fighting Patricky Pitbull at last week’s event in Italy, but for whatever reason, that bout fizzled. When I asked, he didn’t seem to know exactly why things changed. “That’s a good question, because both the contracts were signed, I was training to fight him, and my manager called me and said ‘Hey, it got switched.’ As heartbroken as I was, looking to fight a big name like Pitbull, it is what it is and that’s just the sport. I’m ready to fight whoever they put in front of me.” That left him fighting Toninho Furia this week instead.
While not meeting Pitbull was a setback, he’s not looking past Santos. “He’s a dangerous guy who’s had a bunch of fights, but he doesn’t have the biggest name in Bellator. Not a lot of people know who he is, but I really feel that if I go out there and implement my game plan, and win how I plan on winning, then I definitely think it should put me into title contention. I want to challenge myself. I want to fight the best guys.” Also, Santos has a lot more experience than his previous opponents, sporting a 27-5 professional record. “He’s got a lot of experience, but at the same time, I’ve been training with some of the best guys in the world, and I’ve been testing myself all the time and training so, so hard. I really feel that just training with the guys I’ve been training with is a confidence booster. I know I can finish anybody, and I know I can go in there and do what I’ve got to do. I’m going to go in there and make this my fight, make him fight my game. I’m not really worried about all that experience and everything too much.”
The new opponent, and his first time on the Bellator main card instead of the prelims makes no difference for Primus. “I don’t think it changes too much, because I’m going in there and fighting and once the cage is shut, it’s me and my opponent. I have the same game plan for everybody, and that’s to win. That’s what it is for this fight. I’m going to go in there and fight my heart out, and I’m going to put everything I have into this fight, like I do every other fight.” For now, he’s still undefeated at 6-0, but Primus realizes that losses most likely come with moving up in the sport. “I try not to think about that. You know, like everyone says, ‘Oh, you can’t lose, you’re undefeated. You should try to retire undefeated.’ But the truth is that this is a crazy sport that we participate in, and if I want to fight, the chances of losing are high. Anything can happen. I literally don’t know anybody who trains harder than me. Not one person. But I’m not really trying to think about the undefeated thing too much. I’m just training my butt off, and one thing that helps me with my confidence going into that cage is knowing all of the things I’ve done to prepare myself. I know that if I train every day as hard as I can, and do whatever I’ve got to do, then that lowers my chances of losing. So that’s what I’m doing.”
Looking toward the future, He doesn’t have any specific fights in mind. “I don’t like to really name people or whatever, but I just want to fight somebody in the top five, top ten guys. I want to fight whoever is going to get me closer to that title contention. Closer to that belt. I just want to fight a top guy with a top name.” Beyond that, he just wants to keep advancing and growing in the sport. His goals are simple, “Obviously, to stay healthy, to train hard, and keep on learning. I just want to be challenged. I just want to challenge myself. I feel like that’s what life is about. If you’re not getting challenged, then I feel like life would be just so boring. I want to challenge myself. I want to fight the best guys in the world. Obviously in the future, I want to be the champion, and I think I can be the champion. It’s just a matter of time before I let everybody know that. I just want to fight whoever is going to get me closer to that belt. I want to make a name for myself. More than anything in the world, I want to make my family proud of me. And that’s definitely it right there.” And who knows? Maybe that missed opportunity to meet Patricky Pitbull will pop up again sooner rather than later.
The fights get posted to the Bellator app like 3 hours after the show. I watch that way often.
Excited to see this kid. He sounds hungry and prepared to go balls to the wall.
Bellator 153: Brent Primus' Roundabout Path to the Bellator Cage
4/22/2016
Comments
Dave Willford
At Bellator 153, Oregon’s Brent Primus (6-0) will face Brazil’s Gleristone Santos (27-5), better known by his nickname “Toninho Furia”, in a lightweight bout on the main card. While Primus only has six pro fights so far, he is seen as a prospect in Bellator’s 155 pound division.
Unlike a lot of mixed martial artists, Primus did not begin training at an early age in wrestling or one of the traditional martial arts. Instead, he came into the sport to cope with anger and feed his competitive nature. He had a unique childhood that later led him to martial arts. He explains, “When I was younger, me and my step-dad didn’t get along together too well, and I got kicked out of the house at like 13. We didn’t get along - we’re good now, and we love each other now - and I remember him telling me things like ‘You’re going to work at McDonald’s the rest of your life’ or ‘You’re worthless’. It kind of hurt then, but I would not change anything that happened, or what he said to me. I hear that voice in my head, ‘You’re a loser. You’ll work at MacDonald’s.’ That lit a fire in me, and made me who I am. When I’m sore and tired, I hear that voice. It made me a competitor and made me who I am. I would not change anything like that. I had to do the jobs when I was younger, a lot earlier than some people, and I was paying bills and had my own place way younger, in high school. It definitely made me grow up faster, and it made me who I am.”
Being on his own as a teenager eventually led him to jiu jitsu, through a round-about path. Instead of training first, he had his first amateur fight pretty much untrained. “I kind of had a lot of anger in me, from my step-dad, my childhood. It kind of drove me. I remember I used to get into a lot of fights when I was younger, a lot of fights. My coach, now, was like “Man, if you’re going to fight, you might as well get into a cage and make money and do things.’ So he signed me up for a cage fight. And I did not train for a day in my life. It was about two weeks out, I’m like ‘OK. I’m going to walk into this jiu jitsu gym and see what this training is all about.’ I walk in there, and just got submitted and choked out left and right by guys who were smaller than me and everything. It just blew my mind away, and I fell in love with it. Ever since then, I’m in the gym every single day. Once I started doing jiu jitsu, I was winning all the tournaments around here. The first time I went to Pan Americans, my first gi competition, I got gold. I won. I had like eight matches. I was placing in nationals, all these big tournaments, and from then on, I thought ‘I think I can go far. I think I can do something in this.’ It all kind of hit home from then.” So an impromptu amateur MMA fight led Primus to jiu jitsu, which eventually led back to a pro MMA career.
Brent Primus squares off with his opponent at Bellator 153 weigh-ins (Photo Credit: Bellator MMA)
Along the way, Primus owned a thriving landscaping business, but eventually sold that so that he could train and compete full-time. “Landscaping was awesome. I loved making my clients happy, and waking up early, and getting those checks. It was awesome, but I knew I was built for something better. Ever since I was little, I knew I would do something that wasn’t normal. I always thought I could do something that was great. I think MMA is a perfect fit for me. I like challenging myself every day, and I work my butt off. I wouldn’t change it for anything.” The move from landscaping full-time to making MMA his career brought quite a bit of improvement to his fighting game, and while he enjoyed landscaping, he’s happy with the commitment to mixed martial arts. “When I had my landscaping business, I was waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning, and wouldn’t get done until 7 at night some times. There’s really no time to train, so I’d really just bust my ass and try to get my clients done, so I could make it to the gym by 5 or 7 or whatever and make it to jiu jitsu class and everything. But now that I don’t do that and I just train all day long, the sky is the limit. I’m training all day long, and learning and learning. That’s what this sport should be about.”
Learning seems to be a key factor in his love for the sport. With six pro fights, there is still a long way to go. “This sport is so crazy, and there are so many things to learn, jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling. There’s so much to learn, and I feel like I’m learning every single day. Like I said, I’m a black belt in jiu jitsu, but sometimes I feel like a white belt. I’m learning every day, all day long. So I just think the sky is the limit, and as long as you have an open mindset to learning, no matter who you’re learning from. I can learn from a white belt, or somebody who just started. There’s so much in this sport, and I’m just trying to soak up as much information as I can every single day, with all the people I train with. One percent better, every single day.”
That quest to improve led him to visit Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone’s BMF ranch on a few occasions to help hone his skills. As Primus describes, “It was a lifetime experience. Cowboy let me go train with him and stay at his house for multiple weeks at a time. Not only seeing how they train, but just seeing how they deal with life. How they’re calm, and how they try to have fun in training camps to take their mind off of grueling training camps. I learned so much training with him, and it was the greatest experience in my training career, actually. Going to Greg Jackson’s, and hanging out with Jon Jones, Arlovski, and Cowboy, and just so many guys. I learned so much in those weeks. It was definitely a blessing.”
Brent Primus is amped for his Bellator 153 fight (Photo Credit: Bellator MMA/Eric Coleman)
All of this made quite a change from his early days in the sport. With most of his pro wins coming by submission, it was a bit surprising to find that most of the wins in his 5-1 amateur career came by way of knockout. But that just shows his growth in the sport. Primus explains his amateur days, “When I was an amateur, you know, I wasn’t training too much for my first few amateur fights. I used to have a lot of anger in me and I would get in a lot of street fights. That was just pure aggression and anger, just going in there and throwing bombs. I have a really hard right hand, and I knocked out a lot of people in like fifteen seconds. As soon as I started training and actually being a martial artist, and bowing to my instructors and getting humbled every day, it changed my game in every aspect. It changed my life, jiu jitsu did. Once I started going to tournaments and winning nationals, it definitely changed my game plan. It changed who I was. Especially once I got my black belt. I felt almost invincible. I started using my jiu jitsu and taking people down, and choking them and using my jiu jitsu against everybody.”
Most of his fights have ended in the first round, both as an amateur and a pro, going from mostly fast knockouts as an amateur to fast submissions as a pro. He sees this as a good thing now that he’s made a career in the sport. “I’m really aggressive, and my jiu jitsu style is really submission oriented. I attack, attack, attack. It kind of just happened how it did. I’m always looking for in and out. Those long battles, and getting hit, and those fifteen minute fights in the cage, are not too good for your brain, and not too good for a long career. The sooner I can get in there and get out, the better. I think with my training, with my coaches, first-round fights are possible every fight.”
His most recent fight, though, a split decision win over Derek Anderson at Bellator 141 last August, was one of those dreaded fifteen minute battles. “That was definitely a tough fight for me. The training camp going into it, I had a bunch of things happen to me. I had injuries. The first thirty seconds of that fight, I blew my rib, the cartilage, and I couldn’t fight to my game plan. Every time I threw my left hand, my rib popped out and I couldn’t breathe. Just going to decision like that and fighting fifteen hard minutes with an injury like that, was definitely a learning experience for me. I learned a lot about myself. Knowing I’m going into this fight without those injuries is crazy to me. I feel like I’m going to be a different fighter. Everybody who saw me fight in that fight, and saw my standup, I hope they think that that’s how I fight. I’m telling you, that’s not how I fight. I’m so excited to go in there and fight at 100%.”
There was talk recently about Brent fighting Patricky Pitbull at last week’s event in Italy, but for whatever reason, that bout fizzled. When I asked, he didn’t seem to know exactly why things changed. “That’s a good question, because both the contracts were signed, I was training to fight him, and my manager called me and said ‘Hey, it got switched.’ As heartbroken as I was, looking to fight a big name like Pitbull, it is what it is and that’s just the sport. I’m ready to fight whoever they put in front of me.” That left him fighting Toninho Furia this week instead.
While not meeting Pitbull was a setback, he’s not looking past Santos. “He’s a dangerous guy who’s had a bunch of fights, but he doesn’t have the biggest name in Bellator. Not a lot of people know who he is, but I really feel that if I go out there and implement my game plan, and win how I plan on winning, then I definitely think it should put me into title contention. I want to challenge myself. I want to fight the best guys.” Also, Santos has a lot more experience than his previous opponents, sporting a 27-5 professional record. “He’s got a lot of experience, but at the same time, I’ve been training with some of the best guys in the world, and I’ve been testing myself all the time and training so, so hard. I really feel that just training with the guys I’ve been training with is a confidence booster. I know I can finish anybody, and I know I can go in there and do what I’ve got to do. I’m going to go in there and make this my fight, make him fight my game. I’m not really worried about all that experience and everything too much.”
The new opponent, and his first time on the Bellator main card instead of the prelims makes no difference for Primus. “I don’t think it changes too much, because I’m going in there and fighting and once the cage is shut, it’s me and my opponent. I have the same game plan for everybody, and that’s to win. That’s what it is for this fight. I’m going to go in there and fight my heart out, and I’m going to put everything I have into this fight, like I do every other fight.” For now, he’s still undefeated at 6-0, but Primus realizes that losses most likely come with moving up in the sport. “I try not to think about that. You know, like everyone says, ‘Oh, you can’t lose, you’re undefeated. You should try to retire undefeated.’ But the truth is that this is a crazy sport that we participate in, and if I want to fight, the chances of losing are high. Anything can happen. I literally don’t know anybody who trains harder than me. Not one person. But I’m not really trying to think about the undefeated thing too much. I’m just training my butt off, and one thing that helps me with my confidence going into that cage is knowing all of the things I’ve done to prepare myself. I know that if I train every day as hard as I can, and do whatever I’ve got to do, then that lowers my chances of losing. So that’s what I’m doing.”
Looking toward the future, He doesn’t have any specific fights in mind. “I don’t like to really name people or whatever, but I just want to fight somebody in the top five, top ten guys. I want to fight whoever is going to get me closer to that title contention. Closer to that belt. I just want to fight a top guy with a top name.” Beyond that, he just wants to keep advancing and growing in the sport. His goals are simple, “Obviously, to stay healthy, to train hard, and keep on learning. I just want to be challenged. I just want to challenge myself. I feel like that’s what life is about. If you’re not getting challenged, then I feel like life would be just so boring. I want to challenge myself. I want to fight the best guys in the world. Obviously in the future, I want to be the champion, and I think I can be the champion. It’s just a matter of time before I let everybody know that. I just want to fight whoever is going to get me closer to that belt. I want to make a name for myself. More than anything in the world, I want to make my family proud of me. And that’s definitely it right there.” And who knows? Maybe that missed opportunity to meet Patricky Pitbull will pop up again sooner rather than later.
have they started?
Mission completed.
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Shit, had a former employee call me about 45 minutes ago about being contacted about a warrant for his arrest. Asked me if I paid his traffic ticket from like 10 years ago, when he was working on a job for me that I was Project Managing. It was our fault...trailer that he was pulling had faulty lights. Anyway, I just jumped back in here. Bellator's stream shit the bed??
Priorities bro!!!
You tell that extra employee he better join a gang when he gets sent down