Cheick Kongo and Ryan Bader have unfinished business after their original Bellator MMA title fight ended in a No Contest due to an eye poke. There has been a lot of talk between the two since that moment.
Now, they're set to headline an MMA event in Paris, France and they're finally about to settle things. Cheick Kongo spoke to the media ahead of the fight and admitted he is still a little bit bitter considering the way things went down with the Bellator champion.
“It’s been a while,” Kongo said during a virtual Bellator 280 news conference Wednesday via MMA Junkie. “I didn’t have anything against him, but I was quite frustrated to not be able to explain and be here. I didn’t have the ability to express myself. … It was a big deception to be shut off.”
He continued, “I still have a bitter taste, but I’m good. Finally we make it. I didn’t have to use that long road.”
The feelings towards Ryan Bader are not the same as they used to be for Cheick Kongo. He's fully focused on proving that he's the rightful owner of the Bellator MMA heavyweight championship.
“It’s always been a competition,” Kongo said. “I let the trash talking and the bad blood on the side. … He didn’t do very well in the first one, and he was claiming, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything, blah, blah, blah and recently he used to assume ‘I probably did it, but if I did, it was an accident. It wasn’t on purpose.'”