Fabian Edwards believes that his co-main event fight with Mike Shipman at the Bellator London is probably the biggest fight of his career-however, he doesn’t feel the same way about the man he’ll be fighting at this event.
According to Edwards, defeating Shipman on Nov. 23 will finally prove him to be the best middleweight in the country. Once that has been settled, he wants to peruse proving his status in the middleweight arena in Europe. To prove himself in Europe, he will have to face-off Costello van Steenis before he moves on to fight the elite middleweights in Bellator.
“Being co-main event on a London card that’s headlined by Page, I think in that sense it is the biggest fight of my career, (but) not so much the opponent,” claims Edward.
Shipman’s standing was slightly disturbed due to his stoppage loss to Van Steenis previously. Yet he believes he will even out this score for his fans soon.
“It’s something that needed to get put to bed,” he said. “I don’t really see it as me risking everything, but I do feel like it’s a bigger fight for him. I’m going to be training very hard for this, but he’ll be over-training, because he knows once he loses to me, it’s over for him.
“I feel like after I finish him, he’ll have to start building himself from the bottom again. He’s lost to the guy that Bellator sees as the best guy in Europe. I’ll be effectively wiping him out.”
“After that, I’m gonna wipe out the Americans and these old legends. That’s the way I’m gonna chip away and forge my path to a world title shot. I don’t want to leave any doubt. I don’t want people saying, ‘Why didn’t he fight that guy?’”
Edwards is expected to be in a position to renegotiate his contract with Bellator after his next two fights, which just might make the whole deal much much sweeter financially as it is competitively.
According to Edward, “I’m definitely happy, I’ve been with the company for less than a year, and I’m on my second contract. By the time I beat the next two people, it will be time for my next contract. That will be the elite contract, on that contract I’ll be happy to fight the likes of (Gegard) Mousasi, that little juice head (Rafael) Lovato (Jr.) and all the rest of them.”
