Johnny Eblen Believes He's a Nightmare for Alex Pereira: "I Beat Him 10 out of 10 Times."

[Substance Abuse]

This past weekend, Eblen continued to impress, dominating Anatoly Tokov at Bellator 290 to retain his middleweight title. Following the win, the discourse quickly turned to where Eblen fits among the top middleweights in the world, and “The Human Cheat Code” has an answer: Firmly at the top.

Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Eblen made no bones about just how good he is, saying he would absolutely defeat current UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira.

“I think I beat him. Ten times out of 10, I beat him,” Eblen said. “I’m too much for the guy. I am a style matchup disaster for him. He’s a style matchup [that’s] great for me. I have great cardio, I can hit hard, I can take a punch, and I mix up the striking and wrestling really well. I don’t see him beating me. There’s no way. The ability for how well I wrestle, you can’t make up for that, especially with the time that he has in MMA. There’s no way. He’s too old. He would have had to start wrestling 10 years ago. So I think I’m a bad style matchup for him and I think I beat him 10 times out of 10.

“I think I can beat anybody on the planet. I’m one of the best, if not the best middleweight on the planet. I can’t say for sure, factually, because I haven’t fought everybody, but I think I match up damn well with every single middleweight in the world and I think I can win every single fight.”

Eblen has a reason to be confident. A former D-1 wrestler for the University of Missouri, Eblen is 13-0 in his professional MMA career and trains out of one of the most well-regarded gyms in the world, American Top Team. Working with some of the best fighters and coaches in the world, all of whom speak glowingly of Eblen, has helped the Bellator champion to be fully confident in what he brings to the cage.

“During this camp, it started creeping in,” Eblen said. “Like, ‘Dude, I’m getting better, I’m getting good.’ I’m a problem. I’m a huge problem, and I’ve still got to work on a lot of stuff. I’m going to be more of a problem this next camp. I’m just getting better exponentially and it’s getting scary. I’m seeing the trajectory and I’m like, the fact that I’m beating the s*** out of guys right now, it’s only going to get worse.

“It’s not like I’ve been telling people that,” Eblen continued. “I doubt myself. But the people around me watch me work, watch me do my thing, watch me train, and they’re like, ‘Dude, you’re the best.’ I think that’s a vote of — I have self confidence, of course, but I’m going to doubt myself because I’m very critical of myself. But the fact that the people I’m spending the most time around are telling me this, it really means something. It’s helping me believe in myself, if anything.

“I do believe in myself, just genuinely, but it’s just a little bit more, ‘OK, well I’m not delusional at least. Other people are telling me this.’ Obviously there’s going to be some backlash about it, and a lot of people are going to think I’m delusional, but I don’t really care. The people that are around me the most and the people that actually know me are telling me honestly what they think, and that’s what they’re telling me. So I’m just like, f*** yeah, let’s go. Let’s get this money.”

Currently the No. 6 ranked middleweight in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings, the issue for Eblen moving forward will be, what comes next? Bellator does not have a deep middleweight division and Eblen has already beaten three of the top five fighters in the Bellator rankings. However, there is one matchup on the horizon that Eblen believes would make sense for his next title defense: The winner of the upcoming Gegard Mousasi vs. Fabian Edwards fight that will take place at Bellator Paris in May. That would give Eblen the chance to either pull off a clean sweep of Bellator’s top middleweights, or to run it back with a legend of the game, and improve upon his dominant showing in their first contest.

“I think the winner of Mousasi and Edwards, that’s the one that makes sense,” Eblen said. “I think they’re fighting in Paris in May. It seems like a No. 1 contender fight for me.

“I just want to fight, get paid, and put on another good performance. Regardless of who it is, I don’t care. I’m ready for anybody. Like I said, I’m ready to fight anybody in the world, so I really don’t care. It would be cool because it would be a different challenge with Edwards, but it would be even better to run it back with Mousasi, because I’m getting even better so I can put on a better performance and even finish him.”

Link: https://www.mmafighting.com/2023/2/...or-alex-pereira-i-beat-him-10-times-out-of-10

 

[TJ177]

Anyone who wrestles should reasonably and confidently consider themselves a nightmare match-up for Poatan.

This guy is undefeated and in a different promotion- he would be derelict in his duty to not say he'd win 10 out of 10 times.

 

[HuskySamoan]

I believe Johnny Eblen is right. Easily top 5 MW in the world and if he's wrestling John Salter and Tokov, Pereira isn't keep him off him and Eblen can go all night. Pereira has basically a punchers chance. Whittaker, Vettori, Dolidze, Adesanya types would give him a tougher time but I think I favor Eblen there too besides Whittaker and maybe Adesanya, I think I favor Eblen slightly vs Izzy.

I was saying it, Eblen vs Tokov and Magomedrasul Gasanov vs Salamu Abdurakhmanov are/were two upcoming MW fights where the winner may very well be the best MW in the world rather than the UFC Champ.

 

[HuskySamoan]

 

[JustOnce]

Eblen is top 5 MW easily. Just like Amosov is top 5 easily, and Nemkov is easily top 3. It's hard to place Bader, but their top, top guys would hold their own against UFC's top guys for sure.

I would favour Eblen, but he wouldn't beat him 10 out of 10 times. Perreira would catch him once a while. And you only fight once anyways. Unless you are Izzy and you lose three times in a row, and get a fourth fight.

 

[cade187]

 

[Shilajit]

He's a tough guy but his striking is amateurish

And he isn't a finisher

He struggles for every takedown


Hard to see a reality where Poatan doesn't land a flying scissor knee, left hook or something significant.

 

[Ragnus]

As much as yes, these wrestlers have a decent chance to beat Pereira. Pereira a multiple-weight kickboxing world champion also has a decent chance of knocking these amateur strikers dead.

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

I watched this and the Moose fight. He's certainly a good enough wrestler, but he does spend a lot of time standing, and his stand up does seem to have a lot of swanging and getting hit. So no.

I'd chalk this up to a specific subset of "wrestler falls in love with his hands." Not in the KO category but in the "Hey, this 'duck my head and throw an overhand stuff' is pretty successful (on specific jab-based counter-strikers, which i should probably be more reticent about) so I must be pretty good at it to keep landing it."

 

[Substance Abuse]

Eblen would be the rightful favorite in this fight, but he's got some bad defensive tendencies like ducking his head forward and swinging wide at times. His leg kicks wouldn't be as effective either. That said, the threat of the takedown changes the fight for plenty of good strikers and Eblen is a good wrestler with top tier cardio.

As for Izzy and Whittaker? Those are different stories.

 

[PurpleDrank]

Eblen smokes him

 

[ExitLUPin]

Izzy is a shitty offensive grappler never shot a TD in his life and he had Alex down for an entire round, riding him, controlling him with Alex doing nothing. He was so gassed he had to take the 4th round entirely off doing very little.

Eblen is like a MW Colby with more power. He'd break him down with his pace, workrate and most likely finish a gassed Alex. Alex cannot deal with his grappling and mixups at all.

Vadim VS Jamahal
Eblen VS Alex
Amosov VS Leon
Patricio VS Volk
Usman VS Islam

Bellator champs can def take UFC ones ATM. Aljo would beat Sergio but Stots or Patchy are similar fighters to Aljo and tough matchups for him.

 

[HuskySamoan]

I watched this and the Moose fight. He's certainly a good enough wrestler, but he does spend a lot of time standing, and his stand up does seem to have a lot of swanging and getting hit. So no.

I'd chalk this up to a specific subset of "wrestler falls in love with his hands." Not in the KO category but in the "Hey, this 'duck my head and throw an overhand stuff' is pretty successful (on specific jab-based counter-strikers, which i should probably be more reticent about) so I must be pretty good at it to keep landing it."

As much as yes, these wrestlers have a decent chance to beat Pereira. Pereira a multiple-weight kickboxing world champion also has a decent chance of knocking these amateur strikers dead.

Bruno Silva and Quemel Ottoni gave Alex Pereira tons of trouble standing, Bruno made it the full 15 and Quemel ended up rocking Pereira and submitted him in the third. It's time to stop acting like Pereira cannot be struck with in MMA, if you've watched his 8 fights thus far that just hasn't held true.

I'd argue someone like Elben who can get a guy on the back foot with constant pressure and mixes things up really well could do fine standing for portions vs Pereira, he's certainly more talented even if more rough around the edges standing than Ottoni or Bruno. As for him "falling in love with his striking" I mean the guy did drop Mousasi and go blow for blow, out of his prime or not and he dropped Tokov....hes improving. Beyond that, Eblen is fucking training partners with Bo Nickal and Yaroslav Amosov and his head coach is King Mo....I assure you he'd have a wrestling heavy gameplan and work that ass if he fought Pereira anyways.

 

[Thesnake101]

He's a tough guy but his striking is amateurish

And he isn't a finisher

He struggles for every takedown


Hard to see a reality where Poatan doesn't land a flying scissor knee, left hook or something significant.

He struggles with takedowns against guys who have a strong grappling base, that's not Alex.

And we can't act like Pereira hasn't looked vulnerable in pretty much all of his UFC fights save for the Strickland one.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Izzy is a shitty offensive grappler never shot a TD in his life and he had Alex down for an entire round, riding him, controlling him with Alex doing nothing. He was so gassed he had to take the 4th round entirely off doing very little.

Eblen is like a MW Colby with more power. He'd break him down with his pace, workrate and most likely finish a gassed Alex. Alex cannot deal with his grappling and mixups at all.

Vadim VS Jamahal
Eblen VS Alex
Amosov VS Leon
Patricio VS Volk
Usman VS Islam

Bellator champs can def take UFC ones ATM. Aljo would beat Sergio but Stots or Patchy are similar fighters to Aljo and tough matchups for him.

I favor

Nemkov>Jamahal
Eblen>Alex
Amosov<Leon
Usman<Islam
Patricio<Volk

I think Leon vs Amosov is the closest fight and could go either way though. I do think I give the edge to Leon though, especially having prepared for Usmans wrestling thrice now...I think he'd be ready, Amosov isn't much if a hitter even compared to Kamaru and Leon is very slick, quick and big with great cardio and really solid defensive wrestling but let's see how he does in then trilogy, I keep flip-flopping on this one.

I also think Patchy Mix vs Aljo is a very interesting fight, I assume Mix will win the tournament and then turn Sergio Pettis inside out. I'd favor Aljo but I think Mix could easily be a top 5 guy, just need to see more to be sure.

 

[tehMoose]

Eblen would destroy Pereira easily

 

[MrBlackheart]

If Eblen wants to prove that he’s a big man and get the attention he deserved, he should stand with Alex.

 

[runjay]

Yea?? And if my aunt had a beard she’d be my uncle. Get to the big leagues first, dork.

 

[Poirierfan]

He's right.

 

[Poirierfan]

Yea?? And if my aunt had a beard she’d be my uncle. Get to the big leagues first, dork.

The UFC isn't the big leagues anymore like it use to be even though Dana says so. Good elite fighters are spread out all over the place, Eblen just being one example.