The champion call it quits... Twin Cities.com has reported that Bellator Heavyweight Champion, Cole Konrad, has effectively retired from MMA. Konrad is a former NCAA heavyweight champion Division 1 collegiate wrestler and was undefeated in his tenure as a mixed martial artist and heavyweight champion for Bellator Fighting Championships. He has now opted to take up a job with the firm North Central Trading where he plans on working as a financial trader and will specialize in milk products. NCAA heavyweight champion wrestler Cole Konrad, who won $100,000 as defending Bellator mixed martial arts champion, has retired from fighting and taken a job with North Central Trading as a financial trader specializing in milk products. Bellator and Bellator CEO and co-founder, Bjorn Rebney, have yet to comment on the situation.
WTF . What a shame. Even though the guy was dreadful to watch at times. It seemed he was pretty tough with great wrestling and improving with every fight. I figured he'd kick some bum's asses in Bellator for another 2 years and then go to the UFC. Too bad.
Good for him. You could tell wrestling was his passion, not MMA fighting. When people have options in life on how to make money, getting punched in the face is generally not the route one takes.
The really sad part of this is that Brett Rogers will likely end up being the new Bellator HW champion. LOL.
Bellator should bring in any heavyweight out there with a name for their move to Spike. There's no reason for them not to bring in Sylvia, Arlovski, Duffee, etc. But I wouldn't match them up with each other, at least not right away. If they succeed, the casual Spike MMA viewer will see names they are at least somewhat familiar with. And if they don't succeed, they will at least have given the rub to a younger homegrown fighter. TFK
I completely agree, TFK. I would hold a HW tourney right out and bring all those names and try and land a few more. Throw a little cash at Barnett, I don't know his contract situation but I bet he'd bite. What about CroCop? Is he still under contract?
Well, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Bum Rogers was absolutely miserable in his Bellator debut last weekend. Alexander Volkov boxed circles around him and made Rogers look like every bit the ordinary fight he's always been. Who was it that was saying Overeem was on a roll and listed Rogers as a big name victim???
Rogers was doing quite well in SF until he met Fedor which changed his whole career. Don't even tell me this is the first time you've ever seen a fighter who's promising career took a major downturn after a loss. Rogers never really recovered after that. His career has been shit since that loss. Rogers fought Overeem right after Fedor did and lost again. No one really knew at that time if Rogers was done or was going to make a comeback after his first career loss. Its easy to say in hindsight that he was never good or he was already damaged goods by the time Overeem fought him, but that wasn't the case at that time. He was still considered very dangerous. He gave Fedor hell for the first round.
rogers sucked and always have. he stopped chinny arlovski in the opening seconds and got a shot at fedor. since then he got thrashed everytime he fought a decent guy. overeem tossed him around like a kid, barnett easily choked him out and he lost to that stiff who lost to crocop in his ufc debut.
name one decent win on rogers resume aside from arlovski who has a habit of getting knocked out cold. konrad would've easily subbed rogers. doesnt matter anyhow.
I don't disagree with any of this. The problem is you used Rogers to bolster Overeem's 'roll' just the other day WITH the benefit of hindsight. So it makes no sense to try and elevate Overeem's status based on wins over Rogers and Duffee because we do know NOW that they were incredibly overrated bums.
It wasn't a single win with Rogers. He got hyped because he was knocking cats out cold. He was crushing below average guys like James Thompson and Jon Murphy before doing the same with a relatively hot prospect in Abongo Humphrey. So the Arlovski fight seemed to be a real litmus test for Rogers. Keep in mind, before getting starched by Fedor, Arlovski had ripped off wins against Werdum, Roy Nelson, Ben Rothwell and Jake Obrien. He was nowhere near the shot version that we now see. The quick destruction by Rogers was relatively impressive when it capped off a 10-0 with 10 finishes start to Rogers' career. I have no issue with Rogers gaining some momentum and being considered a promising prospect. It's calling him a notable opponent TODAY, with the clarity of hindsight, that I have problems with.
