In the early 2000’s, it looks like America could finally have a foothold in Greco-Roman Wrestling. Rulon Gardner had won Olympic Gold in 2000, Matt Lindland won Silver, Garrett Lowney won bronze, Gardner and Lindland would repeat their medaling at the 2001 World Championships, Dremiel Byers won Gold in 2002, and Joe Warren would win Gold in 2006. The newly dubbed “Baddest Man On The Planet”, Joe Warren was a rare bird for The United States; a legitimate chance to win Olympic Gold in Greco Roman Wrestling… and it wouldn’t come to pass, with Warren missing Beijing completely. Despite proclamations that he would return to right his wrongs in 2012, Warren instead broke ground in Mixed Martial Arts, never stepping foot on a wrestling mat again - Upsets, Highlights, Loathing, Breaking Ground and Letting Go, this is the story of Joe Warren.
To understand Joe Warren, you need to understand what made him so special, and to understand that, we have to talk about the art he practiced. There are two different styles of wrestling practiced at the World level, Greco-Roman and Freestyle. Freestyle Wrestling is historically an American phenomenon, originating from its roots in Catch Wrestling in England and being brought over to America during its settling. While England and America are both credited with developing Freestyle wrestling, the style wouldn’t catch on much in Europe as the dominant style practiced there was Greco-Roman, an adaptation of the Pankration practiced at the ancient olympic games in Greece and other nations from around the Mediterranean. Freestyle and Greco differ primarily through means of attack; while shooting and tripping are the means of takedowns in Freestyle, Greco forbids attacks on the legs, leading to the battle for control being fought in the clinch and upper body control - Clearly, you can see the differences here, and how learning Freestyle Wrestling might prevent an American wrestler to being a great Greco Roman wrestler, and vice versa, and this is reflected pretty dramatically by the emphatic non presence the United States has had at the world level of Greco-Roman Competition. Trawling through results at the World Championships and Summer Olympic Games, the United States almost seemed to protest participating at all - The United States had a Greco team for the 1920 Olympics and didn’t place, They sent a team in the 1956 Olympics and the best any of their team could get was 5th, they finally started sending teams to the World Championship and the Olympics consistently in 1960, Medaling for the first time at the 1962 World Championships with James Burke’s Bronze. 1970, David Hazewinkel would win Silver at the World Championships, only for him to not place in the 1971 Worlds or 1972 Olympics. From there, outside of the 1979 Worlds which saw a silver and two bronze medals, American Greco performances were in the gutter until the 1984 Olympics, where America would have, by far, their best performance ever, with Steve Fraser and Jeff Blatnick winning Gold Medals and Greg Gibson winning Silver. This, combined with America’s emphatic victories in Freestyle, winning 7 of 10 gold medals, on paper reads like a climactic triumph in Los Angeles, but it’s important to note that the 1984 Olympics were boycotted by the Soviet Union in response to America’s protest of the 1980 olympics.
When it came to Greco, the Soviet Union are still the most dominant force in the record books, still holding the most overall medals in Olympic history despite not competing since their dissolution in 1991, and almost doubling the gold medals held by Sweden, who has the second most; Not counting the Unified Team of 1992, former Soviet Union countries have accounted for 23 Gold Medals since the 1996 Games. All of this is to say that while the United States got to almost sweep the field in the 1984 Olympics and plant their flag in world level Greco, it was done without true resistance, but the seal had been broken; Michael Houck won Gold at 1985 Worlds, Dennis Koslowski won silver in 1987 Worlds, Bronze at the 1988 Olympics, Silver again in 1992. Dennis Hall won Bronze at 1994 Worlds, Gold at 95 Worlds and was joined by Brandon Paulson to win Silver in the 1996 Olympics. Over 12 years, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, America had slowly, but surely, become a consistent contender at the world level in Greco, but while the United States cycled through talent to represent them amongst the weight classes, they did not have a Titan who was at the world level every year to dominate the competition. The best representative was Dennis Hall, Who was the US Representative at 57 Kilos from 1992 to 1999, winning the 1995 World Championships and getting Silver at the 1996 Olympics, but what’s notable about Dennis Hall is that his great rival in these years was not Russian, but instead Kazakhstan’s Yuriy Melnichenko - No, to find the greatest hurdle in Greco, you had to look to 130 Kilos, where Russia’s Aleksandr Karelin would put together the greatest International career of any single man in Wrestling history.
The Soviet Union’s performance at the world level is historically attributed to their political interests; their Soviet government intended to use the international platform of the Olympics to broadcast their unfettered superiority, especially in contrast to the historically dominant United States in the Summer, and as such, Government interest in propelling their sportsmen to the highest level was of the utmost importance, and in the world of wrestling, Aleksandr Karelin is one of greatest to ever grace the mat. 3 Olympic Gold Medals, 9 consecutive world championships, a record that might not ever be broken, 6 straight years without a point being scored on him - Alexsandr Karelin was the Titan of Russia, and in the world of Greco, was an insurmountable force. During the years of Karelin’s dominance, the United States’s representative at 130 kilos was Matt Ghaffari, a talented wrestler who got 3rd in 95 Worlds and 2nd at the 96 olympics and 98 Worlds, but Karelin’s dominance was such that he was not going to fold to Ghaffari; the greatest enemy to Karelin was the one that beats us all in the end - Time. At the 2000 Olympic Games, Karelin would still make the podium with Silver at age 33, but it was not someone from the former Soviet Union who would win gold, but instead, Team USA’s Rulon Gardner, winning the United States their first and, to this day, only Olympic Gold Medal in Greco Roman Wrestling when Soviet Nations were present. Momentum had been building for the United States at the World Level, 1996 saw 3 Silver Medalists from America, but to win gold over Aleksandr Karelin as well as Matt Lindland’s Silver and Garrett Lowney’s Bronze signified another leap like 1984 - 2001 saw Brandon Paulson and Matt Lindland take silver at World’s while Rulon Gardner brought another Gold, Dremiel Byers won gold at 2002 Worlds, Rulon Gardner returned to the podium at the 2004 Olympics to win Bronze after a snowmobile accident and the amputation of a toe - the momentum America had in what has historically been unattainable was palpable, they just needed to continue their upward trajectory and they could become a superpower in Greco as they were in Freestyle.
This brings us back to Joe Warren. While there had been considerable progress in the United States’s presence in world level Greco, the stats are pretty clear - From 1960 to 2005, there have been 3 Americans to win a World Championship and only 1 to win Olympic Gold while the strongest opposition was present; Even if you include the 1984 Gold Medalists, there have only been 5 Americans to win a Greco Roman competition at the World level - Steve Fraser, Jeff Blatnick, Michael Houck, Rulon Gardner and Dremiel Byers; 5 Gold Medalists in 45 years. Joe Warren, a Greco Roman wrestler out of Michigan, was a promising talent, winning the United States and Pan American Championships in 2005 and 2006, but would place 9th at the 2005 World Championships at 60 Kilos. In 2006, Joe Warren returned to the World Championships and this time would take home the Gold Medal over Georgia’s David Bedinadze; What made Warren special, truly special, is that he was not a prodigious talent; he didn’t win Olympic gold at age 21 like Aleksandr Karelin, he didn’t have an undefeated streak in college like Cael Sanderson - he won the World Championships at age 30 through an aggressive style that beat opponents down. His aggressive pumelling exhausted David Bedinadze and his ability to get takedowns won him points en route to the World Championship win; as he entered 2007 and the Beijing Olympics crept closer and closer, Warren’s status as a favorite to continue America’s momentum in Greco was palpable - while Warren was the next in line so to speak after Gardner and Byers had won at the world level from 2000 to 2002, Warren could headline the United States’s ventures into Olympic Greco on a stellar 2008 Wrestling squad to compliment their murderer’s row in Freestyle; all Warren had to do was show up.
In June 2007, Joe Warren failed a test administered by the USADA for Marijuana; it’s customary for athletes who declare for the Olympics to participate in random testing to ensure that they are clean before and during the Olympic Games; Warren knew the risks of a violation, as he had failed a test previously, in April 2006, and received a 3 month Suspension - Anti Doping Regulations state that a second violation carries a steep penalty: 2 Years of Ineligibility. Warren would appeal desperately as ineligibility now would mean he would not be allowed to participate in the Summer Olympics - he testified that his therapist diagnosed him with major depression, citing the ability for an arbitrator to throw the case out pending they find No Significant Fault, which he claimed was used to help him sleep during a depressive episode and was a one time thing, not a pattern of repeated behavior, but the Arbitration committee, while sympathetic to his claims, stated that his continued competition combined with previous failures indicates that his behavior, while not performance enhancing, is not simply a “one time thing”, and could not justify a finding of No Significant Fault. In January 2008, Arbitration upheld his 2 year suspension, sealing his fate as he would miss participating - his Golden window of eligibility up in smoke as Warren would be approaching 36 the next time the Summer Olympics would come around, provided he was even capable of qualifying. Beyond that, what wrestling program would want the disgraced non Olympian who smoked his way out of a chance to win Olympic gold? Combine that with a lesser presence at the Collegiate level for Greco Roman Wrestling in America compared to Freestyle, and Warren was trapped in hell - a Wrestler who could not wrestle. To this day, Joe Warren’s 2006 World Championship Win is the last time an American won Gold at the World level in Greco-Roman Wrestling; Adam Wheeler got Bronze at the 2008 Olympics, Dremiel Byers got silver at 2009 Worlds, Adam Coon got silver at 2008 Worlds, but Warren was the last to win Gold, almost as if his disgraced exit salted the earth for American’s chances at Greco-Roman Results. If you look at the history of results at the world championship level, there are huge jumps in 1984 and 2000, the years that saw America get their gold medal results, but from 2001 to 2006, the United States would win 3 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze Medals in World Championships; from 2007 to 2020? 3 Silver and 5 Bronze in a period almost 3 times as long, including a stretch of zero Medalists from 2010 to 2014. American Greco-Roman Wrestling is all but dead at the world level; it died the second Joe Warren missed the olympics… If the Baddest Man on the Planet couldn’t continue that upward trend, why bother trying? As for Warren, he left Wrestling altogether, vowing to come back when his suspension was up, but this would never materialize - Warren set his sights on a different challenge altogether; Warren set his sights on Mixed Martial Arts.
The presence of Greco-Roman wrestlers in MMA History is one of its most pronounced features. For many, when talking about legacy wrestlers who helped build the sport, most of them competed at a high level for the united states in Greco. Jeff Blatnick, one of the gold medalists from 1984, famously crafted the modern iteration of the sport, helping to write the Unified Rulest, acting as Commisioner for the UFC, and, perhaps most importantly, coining the term “Mixed Martial Arts”, bringing the burgeoning sport further away from No Holds Barred Blood Sport. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Randy Couture and Dan Henderson, combining for 8 appearances in world championships for the united states, would form Team Quest, a clinch grappling focused MMA Team that would provide a base for many burgeoning wrestlers throughout MMA History. Chief of these was 2000 Olympic Silver Medalist Matt Lindland, who made Team Quest his home shortly after his Olympic medalling for his UFC Debut, and when making his transition from wrestling, it would be the home of Joe Warren.
One of the things that makes wrestlers, especially Greco-Roman wrestlers, such an impressive crossover into MMA is that their ability is clear much faster. There have been star Freestyle fighters to cross over of course, but where these fighters tended to craft their games around explosive control, the Team Quest Greco fighters were demons from the jump, and they proved it with how fast they rose to prominence. It only took 8 fights between Randy Couture and Dan Henderson to win two UFC tournaments and a UFC Championship. The clinch striking style would become a signature of Team Quest’s amongst their Greco converts, and with Joe Warren fitting the bill, his dive into elite competition was immediate and emphatic. Scouted by Japanese promotion DREAM, Warren was a big get for their 2009 Featherweight Grand Prix, playing host to some of the most elite talent from around hte world; Nobody would fault Warren if he didn’t thrive, it was a skillset he was almost entirely new to, but out the gate, Warren would meet Chase Beebe, just a year removed from being the Bantamweight Champion of WEC. At 11-3, Beebe had proven to be a durable and high level fighter, but it wouldn’t take long for Warren to win via TKO after taking him down and opening a cut bad enough for the doctors to call for a stoppage to advance to the quarter finals of the DREAM Grand Prix. In the DREAM Featherweight Grand Prix, there was a murderer’s row of world level talent in the fledgeling division - Leglock Wizard Masakazu Imanari, elite power puncher Hiroyuki Takaya, Former Pancrase Champion Yoshiro Maeda, Jiu Jitsu Ace Bibiano Fernandes, Deep veteran Takafumi Otsuka, all of whom were very good fighters and legitimate challenges for Joe Warren… but nobody loomed larger than Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.
It’s impossible to tell the story of Japanese Mixed Martial ARts int he 2000’s without mentioning Kid. Kid came from a legendary wrestling family - his father, Ikuei, would represent Japan in the 1972 Olympics in Men’s Freestyle. His sisters, Miyuu and Seiko, would win multiple world championships. With the athletic genes he inherited, Kid was expected to deliver the results befitting his family. To this end, Kid would go to school in America, wrestling in Arizona and capturing multiple state championships, but in 2001, against his father’s wishes, he would transition into Mixed Martial Arts. Training with Japanese pioneer Enson Inoue, Kid started his mma career a pedestrian 3-1-1, nothing exactly special, but following his first professional loss to start 2002, Kid Yamamoto would go on to redefine expectations forever. Between 2004 and 2006, Kid Yamamoto would fight for Kickboxing company K-1’s MMA promotion Hero*s, amassing 9 wins, all by stoppage. Kid had debuted at 145 pounds, but to fight in K-1, he would move up to 155, knocking out Japanese MMA veterans Royler Gracie, Caol Uno and Genki Sudo to win the 2005 Hero’s Grand Prix. His most visible highlight came in 2006, when he faced Olympic Wrestler Kazuyuki Miyata, winning the fight in 4 seconds with a flying knee from the other side of the ring. This highlight, and what it displays, personifies Kid Yamamoto - his explosiveness only began to be matched by his propensity for violence. He was an athletic marvel, but while he could probably double leg anybody and their mother, he utilized his gifts to challenge what people believed was possible from a human in MMA. All of this said, what made Kid’s star shine so bright int he 2005 Hero’s tournament was what he did the day before the year had started. On New Years Eve 2004, traditionally the largest night of the year for television broadcasts in Japan, Kid Yamamoto would fight in a kickboxing bout with Japanese legend Masato. Masato’s popularity in Japan was unreal - in a sport that was so popular in the nation, there had been very few fighters domestically for the fanbase to connect with, instead propping up the Heavyweight icons from Europe. Masato winning the 2003 K-1 Max World Grand Prix and making the finals in 2004 solidified him as one of the most popular kickboxers in the country, and it would be this man who Kid Yamamoto would be fighting in a special crossover bout. This is a staple of Japanese New Years Eve events; Iconic Kickboxer vs Burgeoning Wrestling and MMA Star on the biggest stage that could be offered, and when the bell rang, the Wrestler and MMA Star would show 50,000 in attendance and the millions watching on tv that he was special. Kid would not beat Masato, he was not that special, but coming in, Masato was one of the best kickboxers in the world while Kid was a wrestler, and despite that, Kid would knock the legend down and throw a victory into question. For a solitary moment, it could be believed that Kid Yamamoto, from a legendary wrestling family, would be the first person to knock Masato out in years. This ultimately would not come to pass - Masato rebounded and would win by majority decision, but Kid had demonstrated how special he was, and when he took to the ring to fight in the Hero’s Grand Prix, even more people would be watching as he bucked all trends and ran through the field en route to victory. While Kid was on top of the world, the cruel call of destiny pulled him away from MMA - Kid’s father urged him to wrestle and train to make the 2008 Olympic Team. At 17-1, potentially the biggest japanese star in the world, Kid would step away from his throne to attempt to conquer another, only for injury and legal issues to plague him throughout 2008, preventing him from qualifying for Beijing, let alone attending. With his own olympic dreams foiled, Kid Yamamoto would return to Mixed Martial Arts to compete for the DREAM Featherweight Championship. Receiving a bye in the first round, it seemed only destiny could match him across from Joe Warren. In a way, Kid Yamamoto and Joe Warren’s paths seemed destined to cross - Warren had dedicated his life to wrestling while Yamamoto abandoned it for MMA Glory, but through their opposite paths, they had the chance to converge in their pursuit for 2008 Olympic contendership only for them to miss their chance for reasons not tied to their ability. With their paths coming so close, it seemed that it was only right for them to meet in Japan, where Yamamoto looked to define a generation while Joe Warren attempted to carry the torch of United States Greco. The two would meet on May 26th 2009, and while Warren’s inexperience in the sport was undeniable, it would be Kid’s 16 month layoff and injuries that would utlimately cost him as Joe Warren’s hand was raised by split decision.
It was a win that sent shockwaves throughout MMA. In an age where Japanese MMA’s viewerbase in the west was expanding dramatically and Kid Yamamoto’s profile was spread in forums, his comeback against Greco’s Black Sheep Joe Warren was not expected to end with Warren’s hand being raised. It is almost unprecedented for an upset of this magnitude - Joe Warren’s second career fight was snapping a culturally defining 14 fight win streak held by Japanese MMA’s crown jewel, and it made a lot of people very mad. There is a phenomenon in combat sports that is difficult to put into a single word; you, a supposedly educated fan of fighting, tell anybody who will listen about the incredible fighter that they’ve never heard of. You show them clips, you know which story beats to hit to get them to like this fighter the way that you like them until they cave and say “hey my very good friend who’s done so well to share knowledge with me, when does this guy fight next? I Would love to see how right you are about how special and cool and jacked this guy is”. You gather around a tv or a computer and watch the fight, and it turns out that you have gotten front row seats to see your guy get bombed out - you’re no longer the educated fight fan, you’re the fool who talked up a guy who has lost 100% of the fights your friend has seen, and what’s worse,t hey only see it because you said how good and cool this guy was. It’s a unique cocktail of shame and embarrassment resulting in you being humbled, and, in some cases, all you can do to let this feeling out is to leave that night loathing the person who did it. This is what I can only imagine was the source of so much contempt for Joe Warren - so many fans would have talked up Kid Yamamoto in 2007 and 2008 as the sport’s fanbase grew exponentially in America, only for Kid to disappear and give people more time to share stories about how good he is only for him to be upset by a man you would only know if you followed Greco-Roman Wrestling in the united states, the 3rd most popular form of wrestling in a country that, by and large, does not follow amateur wrestling culturally. For passionate fans of MMA, Warren’s victory over Kid Yamamoto would define their relationship with him, but instead of it being a story of adoration for one of the great upsets in the sport, it was a story of how this contemptible, smug little punk needed to get his teeth kicked in.
After his upset of Kid Yamamoto, Warren would be submitted by jiu jitsu ace Bibiano Fernandes. As was typical of debutant wrestlers, Warren shot a takedown and left his limbs in guard and was caught in a wayward armbar - it’s a loss that has claimed many inexperienced wrestlers and is numbed tremendously by Fernandes winning the Grand Prix and proceeding to amass an impossible 15-1 record over the course of the next 10 years. Warren’s momentum had been stopped by a burgeoning great, but in 2010, Warren would be recruited to upstart MMA Promotion Bellator. Debuting in 2009, Bellator’s format was much more akin to a seasonal sport, running several divisional tournaments over the course of 2 months to crown their inaugural champions before shutting down for the rest of the year. In 2010, the tournament winners would return as defending champions while additional tournaments would be run to crown contenders. It’s a format that demands a grit that can only be truly appreciated by a grinder like Joe Warren, who would join the Bellator Season 2 Featherweight Tournament alongside regional standouts Wilson Reis, Georgi Karakhanyan and undefeated Patricio Friere, a man who would come to be known as Pitbull. The beauty of these tournaments was that Bellator mostly populated their fields with stellar regional talent that were, for the most part, unknown and unheralded, and gave them a brief window to contend against other fighters they might not meet otherwise; While Eddie Alvarez and Hector Lombard were more known during their season 1 tournaments, Welterweight’s Lyman Good and Featherweight’s Joe Soto were completely new blood. There is a good chance that, without Bellator, fighters like Joe Warren, who had made a splash in Japan, and Patricio Pitbull, who was a burgeoning talent in Brazil, would have never crossed paths, but with the two marking themselves as clear standouts through the tournament with victories over Wilson Reis and Georgi Karakhanyan, the two would meet for Bellator’s Season 2 Featherweight Tournament, and a shot at Joe Soto’s championship. Demonstrating what made him an interesting prospect, Patricio laid hell on Warren in round 1, landing massive shots on the feet and dominating him on the ground, nearly submitting him. It’s a testament to Joe Warren’s heart that he didn’t fold between the rounds as being down that deep with no end in sight just 6 fights into your MMA Career would definitely have any other career wrestler rethinking their career path, but Warren rebounded, getting Pitbull down in the 2nd and 3rd rounds and landing sharp elbows and returning the dominance in kind. When the final bell rang and the judges rendered their decision, they came back split; 1 for Warren, 1 for Pitbull, and the 3rd, by a score of 29-28 to declare the winner of the Season 2 Featherweight Tournament and the #1 Contender for Joe Soto, would be awarded to Joe Warren. It’s a decision that remains contentious to this day, something that Joe Warren was already beginning to be known for, but once again, Joe Warren escaped the noose of the judge’s decision, and after the hell that Pitbull put on him, it was clear that to beat Joe Warren, you were going to have to kill him.
It’s been lost to time how Bellator rose to prominence, and it’s an interesting story. In modern times, companies and their popularity tend to be tied together by two factors; proximity to the UFC and visibility. With the UFC as the epicenter of Mixed Martial ARts, the function of most promotions in the world is to prime fighters to essentially audition for the UFC - to cycle through classes of talent before they are drafted to the big leagues, which incentivizes companies to work with the ufc, officially or unofficially. Many regional promotions froma round the world have UFC Offer clauses written into their championship contracts, and their events are broadcast to everybody who pays for the UFC’s “Fight Pass” Service, but in 2010, the landscape fo the sport was completely different. While the UFC still had the largest market share, Strikeforce had gone national and were holding events on Network Television, but the largest difference was the collection of talent showcased by HD Net. Owned by Mark Cuban, HD Net played host to a laundry list of international MMA Broadcasts to the United States; the revival of Japanese MMA can be almost entirely attributed to their showcasing of DREAM And Sengoku events, the spotlight that figures like Michael Schiavello gave to MMA and Kickboxers through his Voice Versus series proved instrumental in creating buzz for lesser known fighters, and MMA’s only dedicated sports talk show, Inside MMA, provided a launch pad for an uncountable number of highlights, fighters and, ultimately, promotions. Bellator’s profile exploded dramatically in 2010 through 2 viral clips that got their national spotlight from Inside MMA; Middleweight champion Hector Lombard’s 6 second knockout of Jay Silva, and the insanity that was Joe Soto vs Joe Warren for the Featherweight Championship. At Bellator 27, September 2nd 2010, Joe Soto beat the absolute piss out of Joe Warren. The fight wasn’t close, it was a complete route for the young Featherweight Champion. Warren’s habits on the feet were exactly what you would expect of a recently debuted greco-roman wrestler - he leaned forward at the waist, he tried to rush to close distance to clinch, he constantly left his head exposed, basically just constantly left himself open for any striker who could defend his takedowns to have a field day. The clips shared around the MMA World was a beautiful showcase for Champion Joe Soto, who landed constant shots against the world class wrestler and taunted the entire time; it’s common to refer to these moments as a sparring session because if a sparring session was this one sided, someone would step in because it’s not fair - this was target practice. At the end of hte first round, Warren went back to his corner, down about as far as could be, and while he had survived Patricio Pitbull, that fight was only 3 rounds and Warren came away with a narrow decision - Against Soto, Warren would have to persevere through the trauma and shave enough points to compensate for this beatdown all while fighting for another 4 rounds. It was clear that Soto had Warren outmatched, and based on all of the taunting, he knew it. The second round starts and… I think it would be better to see it.
In seconds, Joe Warren reversed his fortune in a clip made to be spread around like wildfire. It’s these two moments, Lombard and Warren’s polar opposite knockouts, that completely changed visibility for Bellator in 2010. The hardcore contingent who wanted Warren’s head on a stick had been deprived a second time in a row as Warren persevered through a massacre of a first round to come out the other side the winner, but the whole new world that had been introduced to Bellator through Warren would come to know Joe Warren as every bit of the claim he made for himself - the Baddest Man On The Planet. This nickname is a holdover from his wrestling days, After winning the World Championships in 2006, Warren was asked how he felt, and he quipped that he felt like he was the Baddest Man On The Planet. As he debuted in Japan, he was asked for a nickname, and he decided to go with that - a little silly, but Warren seemed to be able to live up to his claim. Through the first 2 years of his career, Joe Warren had beaten Chase Beebe, Kid Yamamoto, Georgi Karakhanyan, Patricio Pitbull and Joe Soto, making it to the semi finals of DREAM’s Featherweight Grand Prix, Winning Bellator’s Featherweight Tournament and becoming the Bellator Featherweight Champion. He had taken to MMA like a duck to water; his wrestling was still a viable threat, his ground and pound was excellent, he clearly had power in his hands, and he was insanely durable - it is unprecedented to be THIS accomplished in 7 fights as late as Warren had. Randy Couture was UFC Champion in 4, but that was 1997 - Joe Warren was doing this in 2010! Fighting world class competition when the world was connected enough to know how to fight! It never mattered what happened to Joe Warren after knocking out Joe Soto, his ability had been galvanized every time the clip was shared around social media and with every eye who decided to check out what Bellator was all about. Joe Warren defined Bellator’s first era with his toughness and his presence… in more ways than one.
Joe Warren’s profile in the early days of Bellator combined with his ambition and his durability created a powerful vacuum of sorts surrounding him. While Warren was the Featherweight Champion, he wanted to remain active, participating in the 2011 Bantamweight tournament and drawing Alexis Vila, an undefeated Cuban fighter who had won the bronze medal in the 1996 Olympics, and would be knocked out cold in just over a minute. People celebrated but it wasn’t really the same; Warren might have simply been drained from the weight cut and was still the Featherweight champion… Well, he would then meet tournament winner Pat Curran, who had debuted alongside Warren to win the Season 2 Lightweight tournament, but dropped to Featherweight to repeated success to earn a title shot. As Joe Warren met Curran, the reputation he had built across the Pitbull and Soto fights would come back to haunt him as Pat Curran beat the life out of Warren, but given Warren’s propensity for flashy comebacks, the referee allowed the fight to continue well past the time when it would be appropriate to stop it. In another one of those clips that were spread everywhere, Pat Curran’s finishing flurry of Curran was uncomfortably long - Warren refused to go down but the referee just refused to stop the fight for what felt like an eternity until he finally, mercifully, called the fight to declare Pat Curran the new Featherweight Champion. The important part of these losses are the eras that they occupied - Alexis Vila and the 2011 Bantamweight Tournament would give way to Eduardo Dantas, a man who would go on to become the defining Bellator Bantamweight for years while Pat Curran, already a top Bellator fighter, would be crystallized as their top Featherweight when he beat Joe Warren. Without Joe Warren’s profile, Dantas’s win over Vila to win the Bantamweight tournament is less noteworthy, Pat Curran’s ascent to Featherweight Champion is less emphatic, and the champions that they would become in a formative time for Bellator as they got better tv dealsand a more broad audience becomes much less stated. The career of Joe Warren’s, from Wrestling to MMA, is not that of a man who’s greatness was so undeniable that he altered the planet with his work, but that of a man who is at the center of an infinite number of complex stories - His Wrestling World Championship Win, His Failure to make the Olympics, The return of Kid Yamamoto, the rise of Bibiano Fernandes, the origins and development of Bellator throughout the 2010’s, all of these stories cannot be told without running through Joe Warren. For all that was made of each of his losses, Joe Warren was not a figure who redefined success or is the benchmark for which all performers are compared to, but instead he is the convergence of mythos and lore that would have nothing to do with one another without him. Joe Warren’s career after 2010 was not unsuccessful - he would go on to beat Eduardo Dantas for the Bantamweight Championship, becoming the first man to hold a Bellator title in two weight classes, his lasting presence would provide a launchpad for future Bantamweight champion Darrion Caldwell to become a figure of note in the larger MMA Community; Joe Warren is the catalyst for so many stories that have helped shape a generation of Mixed Martial Arts, and for all the hatred that was directed towards him during his 9 year career, there’s no question that his impact can’t be felt.
Joe Warren was not a god level wrestler, he was not a god level fighter - but for his impact on so many lives and careers in wrestling and MMA, it cannot ever be claimed that Joe Warren did not live up to the profile afforded to him as “the Baddest Man On The Planet”
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