Johnny Eblen’s gaze tends to level squarely ahead.
Take his upset victory over Gegard Mousasi final June, which earned him the Bellator middleweight championship simply 12 fights and 5 years into his MMA profession. Eblen says he took solely a few week to understand his massive second, his popping out occasion.
“It was a cool second, however I obtained over it fairly shortly as a result of I do know I’ve much more to do,” Eblen just lately instructed The Submit by way of Zoom. “It’s not the tip.”
It’s solely the start, in truth. Eblen (12-0, six finishes) returns to the cage for his first title protection at Bellator 290 on Saturday (9 p.m. ET, CBS) in Inglewood, Calif., towards Anatoly Tokov.
The battle with Tokov (31-2, 24 finishes), a protégé of legendary heavyweight and retiring Bellator 290 headliner Fedor Emelianenko, had been within the works for months, in accordance with Eblen, who cited logistics corresponding to when the challenger from Russia could be granted a visa.
Initially, the title battle below Emelianenko’s rematch with heavyweight champion Ryan Bader was to be mild heavyweight titleholder Vadim Nemkov — one other Workforce Fedor success — dealing with Yoel Romero earlier than the champion withdrew. Eblen obtained phrase “round Christmastime” to maintain his weight below management for a possible winter matchup. Information of each fights broke on Dec. 27.
The swap was fortuitous for Eblen, who now will compete on the primary combined martial arts occasion to air dwell on CBS since 2010. Bellator occasions have aired solely on Showtime for the reason that begin of 2021, which means the middleweight champion will garner probably the most widespread publicity of his profession by a mile.
“It’s good,” Eblen, hardly ever one to get too visibly overrated, mentioned of the community tv alternative. “It’s only a step in the correct course. I’m anticipating this, anticipating to take steps up in terms of folks I battle, publicity I’m getting, the expertise degree, and so forth and so forth.”
CBS occurs to be the identical community that aired the Kansas Metropolis native’s Chiefs defeating the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday and earn a 3rd journey to the Tremendous Bowl in 4 years.
Eblen, just like the NFL group he roots for, already has struck gold in his personal sport, and he’s not performed. If all goes in accordance with plan, the 31-year-old will get to rejoice each his first title protection and his favourite soccer group’s newest championship. He concedes that being a title contender is “type of anticipated, virtually, at this level” of the Chiefs.
Not so completely different from how Eblen thinks of himself in his personal athletic profession. Neither he nor Kansas Metropolis’s budding soccer dynasty lingers lengthy on accomplishments. There’s all the time one other massive win to chase.
“There’s going to be different issues I set in life, different objectives that I need to obtain that I’m going to need to recover from the previous to realize these new objectives,” Eblen mentioned. “A part of being profitable in life isn’t actually being glad”
