On Friday night, one of the Netherlands’ best fighters will make his debut in the Bellator cage — a stoical, mildly bemused, completely nonplussed torrent of fist and foot who has largely gone unsung.
Talking about the middleweight Costello van Steenis, of course.
Van Steenis is Gegard Mousasi’s protégé, and he’ll show up to the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., to kick off what he hopes will be a championship run against Steve Skrzat on the prelims. Van Steenis benefits from having an impossibly villainous name — Costello van Steenis — yet at 8-1 he emerged as one of the most coveted names fighting in the European theater.
Now he gets to come stateside and fight on the same card as his training partner Mousasi — who will headline the event against Alexander Shlemenko for his first fight under the Bellator banner — in what he believes will be a prelude to big things.
“This is a dream come true,” he told MMA Fighting. “It’s been my goal since I started this. I had one goal when I started MMA, and it was UFC or Bellator or some other big organization, and Bellator was perfect.”
Van Steenis is 25. He was born in Holland and moved to Spain when he was a just a toddler. When he was three years old he was bit by a dog on his cheek, and he wears the scar to this day. He doesn’t remember the encounter that well, but he wears the scar with fighterly pride. He first tried his hand at MMA at 18 years old. His coach, Ricardo Wondel, gave him the nickname “The Spaniard,” and not because he grew up in Spain.
“Well, maybe a little bit because of that,” he says. “But more because the first amateur fight I fought for him in the Netherlands I delivered a front kick, and that looked like the Spaniard in the movie 300 or something. He was like, dude, that is like something the Spartan would do, the one they called ‘The Spaniard.’ So I’m going to call you ‘The Spaniard.’”
If there’s been a constant in his rise to the Bellator cage, it’s that he’s had the even-keeled Mousasi — who has held multiple titles in various organizations over the years — helping him fine-tune his craft.
“To me Gegard Mousasi is a legend, and I’m very blessed to be training under his wing and under his gym together with the gym I started at with Ricardo,” he says. “I was lucky that he brought me there.
“And I’m lucky that I’m fighting on the same card as Gegard, so I am training a lot more thing time.”
As for making his debut on the same night that Mousasi makes his under the Bellator banner, van Steenis — who arrived in Connecticut on Monday — said it hasn’t sunk in yet.
“I still don’t feel it really well,” he says. “I guess because of the weight cut and all that. At some point before the fight I’m going to realize it all, that I’m actually going to do this shit. I’m going to fight with the legends, and yeah, that’s cool.”
Full story here:
Gegard Mousasi’s protege Costello van Steenis shares mentor’s icy calm into Bellator debut
