Jun. 25—For Christian Edwards, Ben Parrish is out as the Albuquerque resident’s opponent Friday on a Bellator card at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Simon Biyong is in, a pairing made on extremely short notice after Biyong’s scheduled opponent also fell out.
Highly irregular? In MMA, not really.
Nor is there anything irregular, Edwards said, about his heartbeat. So there.
To backtrack:
Edwards (4-0), a light heavyweight who trains at Jackson-Wink, was to have fought Parrish (4-1) on a Bellator card in Uncasville on May 21. But Edwards failed a physical exam performed moments after weighing in the day before, told by a Mohegan Tribe athletic commission doctor that he’d detected an irregular heartbeat.
“I felt fine,” Edwards said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “I wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded or nothing. … (The doctor) listens to my heartbeat and drops that one on me, and I said, ‘What do you mean?’
“He said, your heartbeat’s irregular and I can’t pass you.'”
Dehydration is known to cause irregular heartbeats, and Edwards hadn’t had a chance to rehydrate after his weight cut before he was examined. He asked to be re-examined 20 minutes later, a request that was granted. The outcome, though, was the same: not cleared to fight.
Edwards said he was examined again the next day, and no irregular heartbeat was found. It was too late to reschedule the fight against Parrish, but Edwards was cleared for further action. “It was a really weird, unfortunate situation,” Edwards said, “but lesson learned. Now I know I can’t let (a commission doctor) near me until I’ve had a chance to rehydrate.”
Getting down to the light heavyweight limit of 205 pounds sooner, he’s been told, also might be a good idea. He also weighed in unnecessarily light, at 202 pounds, in May.
“I’m gonna get it right this time,” he said.
So he did. Edwards weighed in Thursday at 206 pounds, a permissible one pound over the limit as permitted for non-title fights, without incident.
After all that, Edwards said, he was unfazed after learning that Parrish had tested positive for COVID-19 and that he instead would face Biyong, an Italian whose original opponent also had tested positive.
“He’s not bad,” Edwards said of Biyong (7-1). “He definitely has a pretty good skill set that he brings to the table, but there are definitely some holes in his game that I can exploit.
“I just know that the all-around mixed martial arts that I possess is way more well-rounded than his game. There’s nothing he can really do to me that I haven’t seen in the gym.”
Edwards last fought Oct. 15, defeating Hamza Salim by second-round submission (rear naked choke) on a Bellator card at Mohegan Sun. Since then, he’s gone home to Yukon, Oklahoma, for the holidays but has spent most of his time working on his craft at Jackson-Wink.
“Oh, man, I’m a ton better (than for the Salim fight),” he said. “… The goal is to look different but better in every fight.
“That’s what you’re gonna see in this fight, is a new and improved Christian Edwards.”
BOXING: Cleveland High graduate Brian Mendoza’s high-risk, high-reward fight against former junior middleweight world champion Julian Williams on Saturday is off after Williams injured his left elbow.
Mendoza (19-1, 13 KOs) lost for the first time as a professional in November 2019, dropping an eight-round split decision against Larry Gomez. He bounced back with a victory by unanimous decision over Thomas LaManna in a 10-rounder on Aug. 29.
Williams (27-2-1, 16 KOs) won the WBA and IBF versions of the 154-pound title with a victory over Jarrett Hurd by unanimous decision in May 2019. He lost the title to Jeison Rosario by fifth-round in January 2020.
The Mendoza-Williams fight was on a card to be telecast on Showtime. Mendoza traveled to Atlanta despite the cancellation and plans to weigh in on Friday as a possible late replacement in another bout.