MMA Fighting<\/a> that the welterweight talent had a target on his back after his \u201cbrilliant\u201d run in 2025.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t feel that at all,\u201d Jean said before the opponent change. \u201cI don\u2019t wanna be the king that sits on a throne and just chills and waits for people to attack his kingdom. I wanna be like Genghis Khan, who went out and went and conquered. Or Alexander The Great, who went out and just went for land, who went for people, who went for all these things. I don\u2019t wanna be the one with a target and getting caught sleeping. I wanna be the one catching everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jean didn\u2019t feel Musaev was deserving of another immediate shot at the PFL gold since he lost a title bout to Ramazan Kuramagomedov in his previous bout. Now booked against Rodriguez, he admits the welterweight rankings may seem a little slim at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho else was there to fight?\u201d Jean said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like there\u2019s anyone else in the runner up for the the PFL lineup in the welterweight that deserves the title shot as well. Who\u2019s next after that? There\u2019s Umalatov. Shamil Musaev knocked him out, right? And then there\u2019s \u2018Lazy King\u2019 [Abdoul Abdouraguimov]. \u2018Lazy King\u2019 barely going against my teammate, Kendly St. Louis. [Patrick] Habirora, who\u2019s in the European scene, he keeps calling out washed-up legends of the past. You obviously don\u2019t want to fight. Your mentality is not of a fighter. You\u2019re a WWE guy. You should be into entertainment business like WWE with Cedric Doumbe. That\u2019s the European scene. That\u2019s what they should be doing. They\u2019re not fighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf these people don\u2019t really deserve the title shot, then who should we put that against? Should we keep putting him against people who don\u2019t deserve it, or should we put him against the names? Should I be going after names now? And that\u2019s what I really want to do. I don\u2019t care about going after people who think they have a claim to the title. I want to go after people with the names, who have the fans who claim that they have the best guy. That\u2019s what I want. Now I want the marketing aspect of it. I\u2019m already a fighter. I know I could beat your ass. So now I\u2019m going to show you and your fans that I can beat your ass too.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Jean, the biggest name for him to face in the welterweight division right now would be Doumbe, followed by Habirora and Umalatov. He leaves the door open for another route, though, which is going up in weight to challenge for the middleweight belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I win this title, I will bring that normalcy [to welterweight],\u201d Jean said. \u201c\u2018This is our champion. Our champion needs to defend his belt against people.\u2019 And then once I do that, I\u2019m going to also go for that 185 belt too. I\u2019m not tunnel vision until my fights. After my fights and in between my fights, I\u2019m always on the broader perspective. I want everything and I want everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jean said that he will eventually move full-time to middleweight later in his career, but plan is to carry \u2014 and defend \u2014 both titles in PFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I\u2019m still capable of doing 170, I also want to get that double champ status,\u201d Jean said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to do. I want to be the double champ. That\u2019s why I want to go up to the 185. People are like, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s talking.\u2019 I don\u2019t give a damn what you think. I don\u2019t give a damn what you\u2019re saying. I\u2019m saying this and I\u2019m going to make sure it happens, in Jesus\u2019 name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnny Eblen won the interim middleweight title this past weekend with a knockout over Impa Kasanganay, and is expected to unify it against 185-pound champion Costello van Steenis later this year. Jean is fully confident in his abilities at middleweight, saying he would \u201ctreat Eblen as I treated Logan Storley\u201d if given the chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy\u2019s going to pressure me,\u201d Jean said of Eblen. \u201cHe\u2019s going to want to take me down. With that aspect, let\u2019s make sure that I keep the pressure. I\u2019m not going to let him pressure me. I pressure the fight. And I impose my will instead of having him dictate the way that this fight goes. That\u2019s how I see it. And then I shut it out. I force him to strike with me. And you seen what happened when he got forced to strike with Impa Kasanganay the first time they fought.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what a person\u2019s strengths are, you have to be the tactician to be able to overcome those strengths and impose your will. That\u2019s how I see it. And I see myself beating Eblen, I see myself being Kasanganay \u2014 he\u2019s such a guy, I hate to say it, but I see myself beating Impa as well. And I see myself beating Costello.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thad Jean wants to solidify his name as the top welterweight in PFL right by claiming the vacant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":["post-825449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}