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      Polish Perspective: KSW 54 guide plus ACA 109 and FEN 29 recaps

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      Video: Oli Thompson discusses FEN heavyweight title win, almost fighting Fedor and future plans

      August 18, 2020

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      Polish Perspective: Summer Transfer Window in Full Swing

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      KSW 54 Results and Video: Gamrot retains title and Izu Ugonoh secures MMA debut…

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      Polish Perspective: KSW 54 guide plus ACA 109 and FEN 29 recaps

      August 28, 2020

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      KSW’s ‘Flying Dutchmen’ recount their post pandemic experience

      August 28, 2020

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      Video: Izu Ugonoh ‘fully dedicated’ to MMA transition after feeling burnt-out with boxing

      August 27, 2020

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      Probellum MMA announce September 5 event featuring Creighton vs. Curtis and Burlinson vs. Iwanowski

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      Chi Lewis-Parry set to defend heavyweight title against Fabio Maldonado at UAE Warriors 13

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      Jack Cartwright slated to defend bantamweight title against Gerardo Fanny at Cage Warriors 115

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      Wales’ John Phillips set to return against Jun Yong Park at October 17 UFC…

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Latest
Walter ‘Kraken’ Pugliesi – A story of fighting and redemption
Video: Ismail Naurdiev claims he rejected Bellator and BRAVE CF offers, wants to ‘get back to UFC’
BREAKING: Justin Burlinson vs. Bobby Pallett in the works for Bellator Milan show on October 1
Video: Stuart Austin on ‘fun’ upcoming fight against his former ‘judo hero’ Satoshi Ishii at EMC 5
Tom Breese vs. Roman Kopylov official for October 3 UFC event
Jack Cartwright slated to defend bantamweight title against Gerardo Fanny at Cage Warriors 115
Wales’ John Phillips set to return against Jun Yong Park at October 17 UFC event
Report: Renato Moicano vs. Magomed Mustafaev booked for October 17 UFC event
KSW 54 Results and Video: Gamrot retains title and Izu Ugonoh secures MMA debut win
Giga Chikadze out of UFC Vegas 8 due to positive COVID-19 test
Euro MMA Hub
  • Home
  • Latest
  • Schedule
    • Schedule

      ACA 110 – September 5

      June 21, 2020

      Schedule

      EMC 5 – September 5

      June 21, 2020

      Schedule

      UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs. Sakai – September 5

      June 21, 2020

      Schedule

      UFC Fight Night: Santos vs. Teixeira – September 12

      June 21, 2020

      Schedule

      BRAVE CF 41 – September 17

      June 21, 2020

  • Event Results
  • Promotions
    • ACA ARES FC Bellator BRAVE CF Cage Warriors FEN KSW Oktagon MMA Probellum MMA UAE Warriors UFC All
      ACA

      Polish Perspective: KSW 54 guide plus ACA 109 and FEN 29 recaps

      August 28, 2020

      ACA

      Piotr Strus expects middleweight title shot after ‘fight of the night’ win in ACA…

      August 20, 2020

      ACA

      Daniel Omielanczuk not thinking about a UFC return, wants to win ACA heavyweight belt

      August 19, 2020

      ACA

      ACA 109: Rafal Haratyk feels no pressure ahead of ‘biggest fight’ in his career…

      August 19, 2020

      ARES FC

      Marko Kovacevic and Stephanie Egger sign with ARES FC

      August 7, 2020

      ARES FC

      Danilo Belluardo: ‘I want to rejoin the UFC!’

      August 3, 2020

      ARES FC

      David Bear and Anthony Dizy among French additions to ARES FC roster

      July 13, 2020

      ARES FC

      French standouts Mickael Lebout and Karl Amoussou sign with ARES FC

      June 27, 2020

      Bellator

      BREAKING: Justin Burlinson vs. Bobby Pallett in the works for Bellator Milan show on…

      September 1, 2020

      Bellator

      Yaroslav Amosov and Mark Lemminger set to clash at Bellator 244

      August 16, 2020

      Bellator

      Nelson vs. Moldavsky and Tokov vs. Gonzalez added to Bellator 244

      August 16, 2020

      Bellator

      Video: Malin Hermansson wants to remain active, targets one-week turnaround to fight at BRAVE…

      August 6, 2020

      BRAVE CF

      Mochamed Machaev and Shoaib Yousaf scheduled to headline BRAVE CF 40 on August 24

      August 17, 2020

      BRAVE CF

      BRAVE CF 39 Results and Video: Giannis Bachar defeats Tahar Hadbi in striking affair

      August 15, 2020

      BRAVE CF

      BRAVE CF 39’s Gregorio La Torre needs to ‘think a lot’ about his future…

      August 12, 2020

      BRAVE CF

      Glenn McVeigh wants Mokaev rematch after signing five-fight BRAVE CF contract

      August 10, 2020

      Cage Warriors

      Jack Cartwright slated to defend bantamweight title against Gerardo Fanny at Cage Warriors 115

      August 31, 2020

      Cage Warriors

      Steve Aimable vs. Jordan Vucenic official for featherweight meeting at Cage Warriors 116

      August 28, 2020

      Cage Warriors

      Jack Grant vs. Yassine Belhadj slated for Cage Warriors 115

      August 27, 2020

      Cage Warriors

      Paul Hughes expected to face Aidan Stephen at Cage Warriors 116

      August 25, 2020

      FEN

      Polish Perspective: KSW 54 guide plus ACA 109 and FEN 29 recaps

      August 28, 2020

      FEN

      Adam Kowalski extra motivated to avenge loss and win FEN light heavyweight belt in…

      August 21, 2020

      FEN

      Video: Oli Thompson discusses FEN heavyweight title win, almost fighting Fedor and future plans

      August 18, 2020

      FEN

      Polish Perspective: Summer Transfer Window in Full Swing

      August 11, 2020

      KSW

      KSW 54 Results and Video: Gamrot retains title and Izu Ugonoh secures MMA debut…

      August 30, 2020

      KSW

      Polish Perspective: KSW 54 guide plus ACA 109 and FEN 29 recaps

      August 28, 2020

      KSW

      KSW’s ‘Flying Dutchmen’ recount their post pandemic experience

      August 28, 2020

      KSW

      Video: Izu Ugonoh ‘fully dedicated’ to MMA transition after feeling burnt-out with boxing

      August 27, 2020

      Oktagon MMA

      Oktagon MMA announce new dates for the rest of 2020

      July 9, 2020

      Oktagon MMA

      Battling the Pandemic: Underground Style

      July 8, 2020

      Oktagon MMA

      Mateusz Legierski injured, Filip Pejic steps in to face Roman Szymanski at KSW 53

      June 30, 2020

      Probellum MMA

      Probellum MMA announce September 5 event featuring Creighton vs. Curtis and Burlinson vs. Iwanowski

      July 28, 2020

      UAE Warriors

      Chi Lewis-Parry set to defend heavyweight title against Fabio Maldonado at UAE Warriors 13

      August 19, 2020

      UFC

      Tom Breese vs. Roman Kopylov official for October 3 UFC event

      August 31, 2020

      UFC

      Wales’ John Phillips set to return against Jun Yong Park at October 17 UFC…

      August 31, 2020

      UFC

      Report: Renato Moicano vs. Magomed Mustafaev booked for October 17 UFC event

      August 31, 2020

      UFC

      Giga Chikadze out of UFC Vegas 8 due to positive COVID-19 test

      August 29, 2020

      Promotions

      BREAKING: Justin Burlinson vs. Bobby Pallett in the works for Bellator Milan show on…

      September 1, 2020

      Promotions

      Tom Breese vs. Roman Kopylov official for October 3 UFC event

      August 31, 2020

      Promotions

      Jack Cartwright slated to defend bantamweight title against Gerardo Fanny at Cage Warriors 115

      August 31, 2020

      Promotions

      Wales’ John Phillips set to return against Jun Yong Park at October 17 UFC…

      August 31, 2020

  • Interviews
    • Interviews

      Walter ‘Kraken’ Pugliesi – A story of fighting and redemption

      September 5, 2020

      Interviews

      Video: Ismail Naurdiev claims he rejected Bellator and BRAVE CF offers, wants to ‘get…

      September 3, 2020

      Interviews

      Video: Stuart Austin on ‘fun’ upcoming fight against his former ‘judo hero’ Satoshi Ishii…

      September 1, 2020

      Interviews

      Alessio Di Chirico has been training with Fabian Edwards ahead of facing his ‘toughest…

      August 28, 2020

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      KSW’s ‘Flying Dutchmen’ recount their post pandemic experience

      August 28, 2020

ARES FCFeaturedFENInterviewsLatestPromotions

Danilo Belluardo: ‘I want to rejoin the UFC!’

by Guido Colombo August 3, 2020
by Guido Colombo 0 comment

Image Credit: UFC

Danilo Belluardo has long been known to Italian MMA fans, having started his career in 2013 when he was only 19 years old.

As a professional, ‘Caterpillar’ has a record of 12-5 with 6 knockouts and 3 submissions. In March 2019, he won the lightweight title in the top Italian promotion, Venator, defeating the Jungle Fight and Shooto Brasil veteran, Denilson ‘Trator’ Neves, by unanimous decision. Three months later, he made his UFC debut losing to Joel Alvarez by ground and pound in the second round. In September 2019, he accepted a short notice fight at UFC on ESPN + 18 in Copenhagen. Belluardo faced the Danish Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling silver medalist, Mark O. Madsen. Belluardo lost the fight by TKO in the first round and was released by the promotion.

Last June, Belluardo announced the signing of a contract with ARES FC, the Vivendì group owned MMA promotion led by Fernand Lopez, the well-known head coach of MMA Factory gym in Paris. However, is was recently announced that ‘Caterpillar’ will fight on August 22 in the co-main event of FEN 29 in Ostròda, Poland. FEN is a Poland-based organisation who stage both MMA and kickboxing bouts.

His opponent will be the home country fighter, Adrian Zieliński (just a namesake of the Olympic gold weightlifter in 2012 London Olympics). Originally a Thai boxer, in 2008 Zieliński was silver medalist at the ISKA world kickboxing championship and gold medalist at ISKA K1 European Cup. He started MMA as an amateur winning the national championship. As a professional, in the last ten years he won 19 matches (7 by knockout and 5 by submission) and lost nine. Zieliński was PLMMA Lightweight champion between 2013 and 2015 before moving to ACB, where he fought for three years.

On June 15 2019, he won the FEN featherweight belt defeating the Brazilian, Fabiano Silva. Last October, he failed to claim the Babilon MMA title (another Polish promotion) losing by unanimous decision to Daniel Rutkowski. Euro MMA Hub spoke with Belluardo about this fight and much more at the Aurora MMA team in Rome, where he is training under former Bellator fighter, Lorenzo Borgomeo (the first Italian to fight in a North American promotion after Alessio Sakara).

Danilo, you announced you had signed with ARES FC at the beginning of June, but now you will fight in Poland in another promotion. How is that possible?
“I can confirm that I have signed with ARES for four fights but I’m not exclusive to them. I have also already made arrangements to fight in Paris on December 4th in their (ARES FC) next event, but I still can’t say my opponent’s name. That bout with ARES FC is a while away so I wanted to fight in the meantime.”

What do you know about this Polish promotion and your opponent?
“Honestly, I didn’t know about the promotion but many are running in the East of Europe. The match was found by my agency, the management factory. I only know that my opponent is an experienced fighter because he has 28 matches in MMA as a professional and before that, he was a good kickboxer. This makes him a very aggressive striker but I’m not worried, I’m training well.”

Talking about your training, many fans will remember that you have changed teams several times over the course of the years, why?
“Yes, it’s true and this created several problems for me. When I started to fight, I was with Filippo Stabile’s team but then our relationship broke down. I was also at Urijah Faber’s Team Alpha Male for a camp and then at Thunder Gym in Milan. Unfortunately, it’s a top gym for kickboxing but not for MMA. Now, I’m still living in Milan but I joined Lorenzo Borgomeo’s Aurora MMA team so I often go to Rome and I’ve spent the last month in his gym training for the fight in Poland. When I’m in Milan, instead, I train in various gyms with boxing and wrestling teams and also in Lecco (a city the south-eastern branch of Lake Como) with the Bellator fighters Daniele Scatizzi and Alessandro Botti.”

This will be your first fight almost a year after the end of your UFC experience. What do you think prevented you from being competitive in Dana White’s promotion?
“Going back to what I said before, I think my team changes have been decisive. When you get to fight at a top level, you look behind you and you realize that you have no words of support. However, I remain convinced that physically and technically, I was ready. I think the basic problem was the mental side of my game.”

Why did you decide to choose ARES FC for this new phase of your career instead of other top world promotions?
“First of all, it was because they made me the best economic offer but above all, I want to rejoin the UFC. With this is mind, ARES FC is a better channel as in other organizations, you risk having to stay there for a long time.”

You have been fighting for 7 years now. How you have evolved as a fighter?
“I was technically born as a grappler and moving on to striking was difficult. It took a long time for me to learn, but today I think I’m a well-rounded fighter. I think I’ve improved my striking so much that I could even do a K1 fight.”

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Guido Colombo

Guido is a full-time journalist from Milan, Italy and is passionate about combat sports. He reports on MMA for Gazzetta.it, one of the most popular sports sites in the country. At Euro MMA Hub, he covers the Italian scene which has developed significantly in recent years.

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