[autotag]Gegard Mousasi[/autotag] has big plans ahead of his return.
Mousasi (46-7-2 MMA, 4-1 BMMA) was scheduled to face Douglas Lima for the vacant middleweight title at Bellator 242 on May 9 before the coronavirus outbreak postponed the event.
Now with some time to reflect, Mousasi has laid out his remaining career goals, which include reclaiming the 185-pound title, then moving up to challenge Bellator light heavyweight champion [autotag]Ryan Bader[/autotag].
“Three things I want to do,” Mousasi told MMA Junkie. “One is to fight in my home country of Holland and fight in front of my home crowd. Second, maybe Douglas Lima. I beat him, I get the title. And then Ryan Bader (at) light heavyweight. That’s the things that I still want to do. If I can achieve those three things, those are still things I want to get done.”
Mousasi explained that he had planned to stay active through 2020 before the COVID-19 outbreak put his, and the rest of the MMA world’s, plans on hold.
“I wanted to keep busy, I wanted to fight three times this year,” he said. “So I was thinking two times in U.S., or one time in Europe, and once in Japan on New Year’s Eve – maybe for a belt or whatever. So I had those thoughts, but now everything is on hold, so I just have to wait. But I definitely wanted to keep busy and do the things I wanted to do. Fight for the belt, light heavyweight, in Holland, in Japan, they were all in my plans, actually.”
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One of his goals may have come to fruition this summer, as he revealed Bellator was planning its first event on Dutch soil before the global pandemic struck and put a halt on the process. But he sounded confident that Bellator would be hosting events in his homeland in the not-too-distant future.
“They were working on it. Actually they were very close to it,” Mousasi said. “I was hearing April they could have had a show here, but the city of Amsterdam is a little bit difficult with permits for big organizations. But Bellator being a big organization, they’re almost getting the deal done – because usually (Amsterdam) don’t allow it with kickboxing, because kickboxing has a bad name here. But Bellator is close to getting the deal done.”
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