Tag: Tywan Claxton

HONOLULU — [autotag]Tywan Claxton[/autotag] wasn’t just happy to get the victory Friday night at Bellator 235. He was also glad to show how far he’s progressed as a competitor.

Claxton (6-1 MMA, 6-1 BMMA) earned a unanimous decision in a main-card featherweight bout against Braydon Akeo (3-1 MMA, 3-1 BMMA) at Neal S. Blaisdell Center, winning with across-the-board scores of 30-27. It was a solid rebound from his first career loss to Emmanuel Sanchez in September.

But Claxton, a blue-chipper who was in just his seventh pro fight, fully utilized his 15 minutes in the cage to show off all he can do.

“You’ve seen how calm I was on my feet,” Claxton told reporters, including MMA Junkie, backstage after his fight. “You saw a variety of strikes. You saw me throw some spinning (expletive) in there today, man. C’mon, you saw me throw some spinning (expletive), right? So that just shows you the evolution. You saw some boxing. You saw some kickboxing, some leg kicks. You saw some taekwondo. You saw some elbows, you saw some knees. We gettin’ there.”

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This was important, because the Cleveland native was coming off what could have been a demoralizing loss to Sanchez in the opening round of the Bellator featherweight grand prix.

Claxton, who also works as a coder, doesn’t regret taking the huge step up in competition in Sanchez, given the winner of the Bellator tournament gets $1 million. But with that experience out of the way, he doesn’t see himself in any rush to get back to fighting the top guys just for its own sake.

“I think we continue to fight guys that are my experience level,” Claxton said. “Just because I dominate, that means I gotta go and fight guys who fought for the world title? You know? I have a goal. My goal is to grow like this with MMA. And continue to grow like this with coding. And I’ll decide if I want to fight or if I want to code. They’re both slow processes, and if you put a million dollars in my face damn right I”m going to go fight anybody. You put what I’m getting paid? We build. We fight guys with our experience.”

So from here on out, Claxton will continue to fight at his own pace and continue building his skills. Once he’s where he wants to be, then he’ll give the big dogs another go.

“Go and look at who everybody has fought (in the tournament). From (Adam) Borics to (A.J.) McKee, go and look at everyone they’ve fought,” Claxton said. “Who’s Tywan Claxton fought? I ain’t the smartest guy in the world, but we know how to debug some (expletive), and that just wasn’t it. We know that ain’t the route. We going to use another server.”

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HONOLULU – [autotag]Tywan Claxton[/autotag] didn’t exactly like the taste left in his mouth after the first loss of his MMA career.

But instead of trying to get it out of his mouth entirely, he essentially welcomed even more of it in the name of making himself better.

Claxton was submitted by Emmanuel Sanchez in the opening round of Bellator’s ongoing featherweight tournament in September after opening his pro career with four knockouts in his first five fights.

“I needed to make sure this camp was filled with adversity – and it was. It was,” Claxton told MMA Junkie. “Constantly losing in training – that’s the key. That’s the only thing you can do – sit there, learn, and move on.”

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Claxton (5-1 MMA, 5-1 BMMA) on Friday meets Braydon Akeo (3-0 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) at Bellator 235 (“Bellator and USO Present: Salute the Troops 2019”), which takes place at Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu. The main card airs on Paramount and streams on DAZN following prelims on MMA Junkie.

Akeo earned his way into Bellator during open tryouts for Hawaiian fighters earlier this year, and now he’ll make his promotional debut against Claxton in front of his home fans.

To hear more from Claxton about Friday’s fight, check out the full interview above.

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