Along with an impressive wrestling resume, Joe Warren has brought a mouth to his MMA fights.
That's infuriated Alexis Vila (9-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC), who on Saturday meets Warren (7-1 MMA, 5-0 BFC) in the opening round of Bellator's season-five bantamweight tournament.
Villa is on the warpath one day after Warren came on MMAjunkie.com Radio and called him a "juiced-up Cuban."
"I'm going to [expletive] him up," Vila today told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com).
That's one of the nicer declarations the Olympic bronze medalist spat during an interview in support of their headliner at Bellator 51, which marks featherweight champ Warren's first at 135 pounds.
Bellator 51 takes place at Canton Memorial Civic Center in Canton, Ohio. The event's main card airs live on MTV2, and preliminary action streams live on Spike.com.
Vila, 40, is just the latest target of the bold banter that's characterized the decorated American wrestler's relatively new career in MMA. But this time, Warren has clearly struck a nerve.
In particular, his steroid claim drives Vila mad. Villa said it goes beyond selling the fight, one, and two, it's hypocritical given a positive test for marijuana that cost the 34-year-old Warren a spot on the 2008 Olympic team.
"Go look at his report from the Olympics," Vila said. "He got caught for drugs, and he said, 'Oh, my friends do drugs, too. How about that?' Why do you say that? You're no man. You're no [expletive] man."
All that wouldn't matter so much if Warren hadn't been cordial when the two met at a previous Bellator event.
"He's like, 'Hey, I'm a big fan, we're both wrestlers,' Vila said. "Now, we're not face to face and he's talking a lot, man. He's a [expletive]."
"If you don't like me, I don't like you, and we're not friends. OK, man. But don't say, 'We're both wrestling champions, I respect you a lot,' and now you're not face to face and you're talking [expletive], man?
"That's not what we do, man. He's got little balls and a big head."
While a win over a Bellator champ would certainly put Vila off on the right foot in the promotion, he's not putting any more importance on Saturday's encounter. More important is putting food on the table for his three kids.
Still, he'd love to shut Warren's mouth.
"If I get in a fight with somebody on the streets right now, it's just another fight," Vila said. "I fight against this kid. People say [I] have a wrestling background. No. I don't wrestle. I fight. I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to punch him in the face."
And when he goes into the cage to do so, he doesn't want to hear any excuses after the fight.
"Because when I beat him up, I don't want him to say, 'I cut too much weight; I'm the 145-pound champion, I should have never gone to 135,'" Vila said. "Because I don't want that [expletive], man.
"We're going to fight like two men. If they tell me I lose Saturday, or I win Saturday, I'm going to say I tried my hardest. And if Joe beats me, he beats me fair and square. I don't want Joe talking [expletive], man."
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