Bellator heavyweight contender Louie Sutherland represented his country as a youth rugby player, and is now looking to take gold back to the UK as a fighter.
At one point, it appeared that Sutherland was heading towards a career in professional rugby. Glasgow Warriors were interested and he seemed to be on a path towards playing at the Championship level after playing as a youth for the Scotland exiles.
But after dropping to division three level as he pursued his sporting dream, he welcomed his first son and decided that he would retire from rugby. In the meantime, he picked up boxing gloves for the first time since his youth and rediscovered fighting, eventually taking to MMA full-time.
Louie Sutherland details journey from rugby to MMA
Standing at 6’3″ and over 250lb, the imposing back row was very close to playing for Glasgow Warriors or London Scottish at the championship level. But he had to hang up his boots, and is now fully focused on making an impact in the MMA cage.
“There was a point where I could have gone up to Glasgow to play for the Warriors,” he recalled in an exclusive chat with Bloody Elbow. “But I decided to stay in London and fight for a place on London Scottish which is a Championship team.
“I was there or thereabouts but I decided to stop playing because I had a family and the money in rugby at that level isn’t fantastic. I had devoted my whole life to the game and it wasn’t paying back as much as I probably thought it would have.
“So I had to stop for a bit and then I needed something, because I can’t live every day without going to the gym or bashing a bag. I need to be doing something so I just picked up the gloves again as kind of a default to go back to what you know.
“I can’t do rugby because it takes up too much time. I can go to the gym in the evening and start throwing hands and get in the thick of it that way so I can sell it to the family a bit better and I picked it back up really.
“I don’t know if anyone saw any talent or if that was the conversation but it was just ‘I’ll do some sparring with this guy’. Then I kind of held my own and so I moved up to that guy and they could see that I had some skill which just needed to be honed.
“Being big, athletic and explosive kind of catches the eye in a sense. Not everyone that’s 250lb or 260lb can move that fast with some sort of skill or technique.”
Louie Sutherland sets Bellator debut as he faces undefeated knockout artist
Sutherland has now signed with PFL, where he eventually will compete in the $1million heavyweight tournament. But first he will make his debut under the new-look Bellator, who were recently bought out by the PFL.
He faces the unbeaten Slim Trabelsi on the latest Bellator Champions Series at the Accor Arena in Paris on May 17. And with just two decisions in their combined 12 wins, fans can expect a stoppage when they step into the cage.
“All of my wins have come by finish and I do not look to mess about in there,” Sutherland said of the matchup. “The cliche stuff is that you’re not getting paid for overtime, but when I’m in there I’m looking to finish people and put on a show.
“You can’t take these opponents lightly when they’re finishing people like he does, and he’s very good at it. But so am I, so it goes both ways… You can’t take much from previous fights to be honest and his last opponents are nothing like me.
“I’m not looking to smother. I like to slang and bang, hit people on the chin and put them to sleep so I’m totally different.”
Bellator Paris expected to be the biggest night in European MMA as Cedric Doumbe makes his return
Sutherland’s return to the cage will take place on the undercard of an exciting night which is headlined by Patchy Mix’s bantamweight title defence against Magomed Magomedov. But the star attraction is in the co-main as Cedric Doumbe looks to get back in the win column following his first loss.
That defeat comes with a major asterisk due to controversy surrounding the finish. But his star power was clear as the promotion drew the biggest gate in French MMA history, with Doumbe’s comeback slated to be arguably the biggest night of the year in European MMA.
“I know that the French crowd have been awesome any time that I’ve watched the PFL shows in France,” Sutherland added. “Even when other organisations turn up to France they sell out pretty quick and the crowd gets pretty fired up.”
Sutherland will be the ‘away fighter’ when he steps into the cage, and is ‘relishing’ the opportunity to wind up an expected sell-out French crowd. “I’m going to just soak up that energy and be booed by the French.
“It adds fuel to my fire, really. I am looking forward to it and when they announced that Cedric Doumbe was on the card I went ‘oh here we go’. He’s a pretty big star out in France so we’re in for a good night and these are the type of cards I want to be fighting on and I should be fighting on.”