Bellator Season 2 Featherweight Champ Joe Warren recounts ‘12 hours from hell’ before stunning victory

Rebney salutes former world wrestling champ, says he has ‘the heart of a warrior’

CHICAGO, Ill. (June 29, 2010) — There were times last Thursday — in the hours leading up to his Featherweight Tournament Championship fight with Patricio Pitbull — when the people around Joe Warren began to wonder if the much-anticipated showdown would ever even take place.

Warren, the former NCAA all-American and two-time Greco-Roman wrestling world champion, couldn’t keep any food or water down for more than 12 hours before the fight, was vomiting nearly once an hour and was so dehydrated that standing up was beginning to pose a challenge.

But while others may have doubted whether he would eventually make it into the cage that night, the thought never once crossed Warren’s mind.

"There was absolutely no way I was not going to fight,” he said Monday, looking back on what he described as “12 hours from hell.”

“I coach youth wrestling and I tell my kids all the time that you’re never going to be 100 percent for every one of your fights, but that you’re going to have to battle through days like that if you want to be a champion. I thought about that on Thursday and it just really helped push me through.”

Warren says he woke up around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday with severe nausea that he later attributed to a Wednesday-night room service meal “that just didn’t sit well at all with me.” Charcoal tablets, Pedialyte and Gatorade did nothing to make him feel better.

“I hadn’t eaten one thing all day and I was just feeling terrible,” Warren said. “At one point in the afternoon, Heath [Simms], my manager, asked me, ‘Do you really want to do this tonight?’” At about the same time, I got a text message from my wife, Kristy, and it said: ‘Warriors don’t need to eat. You can do this. Stay focused and it will be OK.’”

Warren vomited yet again as his gloves were being taped, but, miraculously, by the time he entered the cage around 9 p.m., the nausea had dissipated.

Nevertheless, the grappling technician showed definite signs of fatigue and, at times, disorientation, during the first five minutes of the fight. At one point, he made the mistake of turning his back to Pitbull, opening himself up to a stinging right cross that dropped him to the canvass. Pitbull, meanwhile, quickly look Warren’s back, and delivered a flurry of hammerfists before the Round 1 mercifully came to close.

But Warren rebounded in remarkable fashion during Rounds 2 and 3, digging deep and using his world-class wrestling skills to score points with a series of takedowns that were each followed by relentless ground-and-pound attacks and a barrage of sharp elbows and stiff forearms to Pitbull's head.

In the end, Warren went home with a split-decision victory, a check for $100,000 and a future date with reigning Bellator Featherweight Champion Joe Soto for the championship belt.

“What Joe Warren did on Thursday night is nothing short of remarkable. He showed huge heart and the kind of courage that’s not often seen in any sport,” Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney said. “I was in constant contact with Joe’s team on Thursday and I can tell you that most people in his condition would have been in the hospital. But, as Joe’s said many times, ‘Losing was never an option.’ Joe has the heart of a warrior and watching his win over a world-class fighter like Patricio Pitbull was a true privilege.”

Warren, meanwhile, said he has now turned his focus to his impending title fight with Soto.

“I can promise you that I’m going to be 100 percent better by the time I face Joe Soto,” Warren said. “Joe’s a great fighter but it’s going to be tough to beat me. If nobody could beat me in the condition I was in on Thursday, I don’t know how anyone’s going to beat me when I’m 100 percent.”