Raufeon Stots won the interim bantamweight title at Bellator 279 on Saturday, and while most fighters wouldn’t be ok with being the undisputed champion … it’s exactly the place Stots wants to be. For now.
“To be honest with you, the goal is to win this million dollars – that’s my No. 1 goal right now,” Stots said at the Bellator 279 post-fight press conference. “I got two more fights to win this million dollars and to be honest the interim sounds perfectly fine with me right now. I’m going to hold onto Serg’s belt till Serg is back and then we can figure out something after that.”
Sergio Pettis, the reigning champion, is Stots’ friend and teammate and is currently sidelined due to injury. When it was announced the pair would meet in the first fight of the Grand Prix, it was bittersweet. So when former champion Juan Archuleta stepped in, fate was turning the tides.
“But right now I’m happy. If I were to win a belt from Serg, like Serg is my boy. It’s like me taking his girlfriend or something, that don’t feel good to me. This feel good to me. Juan Archuleta, I ain’t really care for his bald head. I really don’t care. This for me, I’m on cloud nine.”
Stots’ next opponent will be decided on June 24 by the winner of Leandro Higo and Danny Sabatello.
“If I get to fight fricking Sabatello, I mean, I’d be happy because he’s another person that I don’t like, so I would love to fight him,” Stots said. “So yeah, he’s got to get through Higo, so we’ll see what happens with that. But congratulations to him, he looks like an amazing wrestler and he imposed his will on somebody.”
Raufeon Stots says winning undisputed title from friend Sergio Pettis wouldn’t have felt good