Danny Sabatello has the same message for the fans at Bellator 282 who booed him and the rest of his opposition in Bellator’s bantamweight grand prix, and neither are kid-friendly.
“The Italian Gangster” lived up to his trash talk on Friday night with a dominating decision over Leandro Higo to advance into the semifinals of Bellator’s $1 million tournament. With the exception of a dicey second round that saw Higo take his back, Sabatello was in complete control from pillar to post against his Brazilian foe — and though the crowd at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena may not have enjoyed Sabatello’s performance or his post-fight promos, the brash 29-year-old still had the time of his life.
“The boos were music to my cauliflower ears. After Bellator 282., Sabatello said that it was “f ****** amazing”. The thing I liked about the fight is that in round two, I had to face some difficulties. Higo, a man who is a total killer on someone’s back, was on my back. I weathered that storm, I got up, I smiled, I was happy I got out of it, and then I just pushed forward until the next rounds and absolutely f****** dominated him.
“He built up some f****** aggression, some momentum getting that second round victory, and I didn’t give one f***. I had all the fans against me, I had everybody against me, I didn’t give a f***. He was still beating me ****** when I got there. It can be called .”
whatever you like.
The performance extended Sabatello’s current winning streak to six straight and put him at 3-0 since inking a deal with Bellator following a failed bid to reach the UFC through Dana White‘s Contender Series. Sabatello has been a star in Bellator’s 135-pound grand Prix. Now he will face Raufeon Stouts, interim champion.
The two engaged in a tense in-cage faceoff following Sabatello’s win on Friday, with Stots drawing a massive round of cheers for the insults he lobbed at Sabatello.
Sabatello is however undaunted.
“Stots doesn’t stand a chance,” Sabatello said.
“He seemed like a little b**** to me. I don’t know what everybody thought, but I just am going to smoke that m***********. You know what? You have to be careful when you are facing a man like Higo, who has great submissions on ground. You’ve really got to be smart, because he’s waiting for you to slip up a little bit. He’s a guy that conserves a little bit of energy, and then right when he gets you, he squeezes the f*** out of you, so you’ve got to be very careful. So with him, I couldn’t take too many risks, I had to play it smart,” Sabatello continued.
“When I’ve got a guy like Stots, I don’t have to be smart, because that guy can’t finish f****** anybody, dude. Stots is not a finisher. He doesn’t pose a threat to me on the feet, he’s not going to knock me out. He doesn’t pose a threat to me on the ground, he’s not going to submit me. So it’s just going to [be a] free-for-all f****** fight, and it’s just going to be two guys beating the s*** out of each other. Let’s not be so naive. You can live your life free. It doesn’t matter if I am boring. I can do whatever the f*** I want to this guy, because he’s a bum.”
Like Sabatello and the Bellator (6-0 champions, Stots has a long hot streak that continues into his bout with 10 consecutive wins. In his quarterfinal bout, he knocked out former Bellator champion Juan Archuleta in highlight-reel fashion. He also owns a recent win over fellow semifinalist Magomed Magomedov.
So even though Sabatello may not like Stots, he still respects him far more than he respects Bellator’s current bantamweight champion Sergio Pettis, who is sidelined due to injury.
“Stots currently reigns supreme in this division. I don’t want to hear s*** about Sergio Pettis. He’s a p****,” Sabatello said. He couldn’t make it on the battlefield. I think he pulled his ACL or some s***, I don’t know. He might’ve retired, I don’t know. Stots is also a little b****, but Pettis is a f****** little b****. He’s not the champion.
“Stots has that belt and I’m going to take it from him. I will not be fighting for an interim title in this fight. It is a title bout. The winner of the f ****** bout will be the champion bantamweight, just like the one that won the tournament. The winner of this tournament is the best bantamweight on planet Earth.”
