UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Devin Powell thinks he can compete with the best, which is why he went into Saturday night with a lot of pressure.
Powell (10-4 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) submitted Marcus Surin at Bellator 232 with a modified guillotine at the end of the second round for a win in his Bellator debut.
The former UFC fighter, who was looking for a new fighting home, admitted that had he lost, he would have considered walking away from the sport.
“Honestly, I had it in my head,” Powell said after the fight at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. “I was walking back and forth, talking to myself, saying, like, ‘This is my time – this is it.’ I told myself that if I wasn’t able to compete and do my job today, and I were to lose, that I was going to … I envisioned myself taking the gloves off.”
After being released from the UFC in November 2018, Powell thought he could have found his way back to the promotion with a few wins on some smaller shows. But he wasn’t interested in that particular road back.
“You never want to see yourself losing, but I thought if I can’t do it here …” Powell said. “My management is amazing, and they were basically like, ‘We could get you an easier fight.’ The UFC liked me – get a couple of easy wins outside the UFC, and they’d probably bring me back. But it didn’t excite me.
“I could easily get easy fights, but I wanted this opportunity and I got it and I got to showcase my skills and got the finish.”
The submission finish by Powell will certainly be a memorable one. Referee Kevin MacDonald stepped in at the end of Round 2 to break up the choke, a few seconds after Surin gave a thumbs up that he was OK.
But when MacDonald broke it off at the end of the round and Powell stood up to go to his corner, Surin attempted to take MacDonald down. With it clear that Surin had gone out from the choke at some point long enough to think MacDonald was his opponent, MacDonald stopped the fight to give Powell the technical submission win.
“Second round, I literally watched somebody finish the fight like that in PFL,” Powell said. “I was like, ‘I really want to hit this,’ and I just told him that I’ve never done that even in jiu-jitsu class, like sniping that down, hitting that rear-naked style guillotine. I think that’s what it was. But it felt super deep, so I kept squeezing, trying to put my lats into it.
“Then I was like, ‘Oh God damn it, the round ended,’ and then he was wrestling the ref. I was like, ‘Oh wait, I did it – he is out.’ So that was kinda crazy.”
Devin Powell admits he'd have considered retirement with a Bellator 232 loss
