With less than two weeks to go before their welterweight co-main event matchup at the upcoming Bellator Champions Series event in Paris, France on May 17th, Cedric Doumbe and Jaleel Willis have thrown verbal haymakers at each other.
Doumbe, who’ll be competing in front of a hometown crowd at the Accor Arena returns to action just a little over two months after suffering a controversial loss due to injury against Baissangour Chamsoudinov, will look to bounce back from his first defeat under the PFL/Bellator banner.
The French striking sensation, who owns a 5-1 professional record with all his wins coming by way of knockout, was initially supposed to face Derek Anderson, but a last-minute shakeup led to Willis stepping in.
Safe to say, there’s no love lost between the two welterweight contenders.
During their virtual media conference call, Doumbe and Willis wasted little time going at each other.
“I’m a fighter, I was born to fight, I was born to knock people out,” Doumbe said bluntly. “I was born to knock Jaleel out so I will do it.”
The man nicknamed “The Best” will have home field advantage come fight night, but claims that he’ll also have the American fans on his side against his American opponent.
“France is waiting for me, all the French crowd, the French people and even American people are waiting for me to knock him out,” Doumbe claimed. I will do what I do best, rip his head off, shut his mouth and send him back to the US.”
Willis, for his part, didn’t hold back on the smack talking either.
“How many times does anybody get to go into anyone’s backyard and dominate and do some [explicit] and be glorified for it and not get locked up?” Willis said?
The more experienced of the two fighters, Willis comes in with a 16-5 professional record with five wins coming by knockout.
Doumbe will arguably be the biggest name that Willis will face, and he’s nothing but grateful for the opportunity.
“I was born to fight, this is way different than fighting in the neighbourhood I’m going overseas so I’m embracing that [explicit],” Willis exclaimed. “I was born to hit the streets, wake up, hustle, do what I got to do and get out and bring home the bread for my family.”
The beef has since spilled over onto social media, with Willis claiming that Doumbe is worried.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to peep when a [ninja emoji] worried about me,” Willis wrote in a story posted on his Instagram account. “Y’all hyping him up and on May 17th I’mma bust his MF head wide open.”
Willis continued by posting another story that read “Cedric t’es mort.”, which means “Cedric, you’re dead.” When translated from French to English.
“LOL, poor guy. He doesn’t know what to expect,” Cedric responded in a story of his own.
With the level of trash talking that these two have engaged in, fans should expect fireworks when they finally share the cage in Paris.