Joe Warren still not convinced of Dantas’ injury, says ‘there is nothing medically wrong with him. He’s just scared’

Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

Joe Warren is still mad at Eduardo Dantas for pulling out of their scheduled title fight at Bellator 118.

The promotion’s interim bantamweight champion was originally scheduled to face champion Dantas in the main event, but the Brazilian was forced to withdraw from the bout after suffering a concussion during training. Instead, Warren faced Rafael Silva for the interim title.

Following Dantas’ withdrawal, Warren took to twitter to degrade the Brazilian for his supposedly cowardly decision.

Warren explained his thought process on MMA Mayhem Radio:

“This has happened before. Dantas is being a p**** and pulling out of these fights. There is nothing medically wrong with him. He’s just scared. That is the bottom line. So he has been pulling out of these fights and I have been training.”

This is not the first time Dantas has been forced onto the sidelines with a severe head injury, as he had previously suffered a brutal knockout loss to Tyson Nam at Shooto Brazil 33, which forced him to withdraw from his title fight at Bellator 79.

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About the author

Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.