Bellator 101's Nick Kirk calls Joe Warren 'chinny' and anticipates grapplefest

Nick Kirk has had to wait for Joe Warren, and he’s not entirely happy about it.

Kirk (10-2 MMA, 0-2 BMMA) peaked in his training and cut weight to fight Warren (8-3 MMA, 6-2 BMMA) at earlier this month at Bellator 98, only to be told the fighter wasn’t medically cleared to compete. The next several weeks were filled with uncertainty as he didn’t know whether Warren would be cleared and if he would fight in the tournament.

Warren faced serious medical issues when a neurological exam came back abnormal prior to the fight, and only with new tests did he receive the all-clear.

After unwittingly going on a roller-coaster ride with his opponent, Kirk is ready to finish this chapter of his Bellator career when he meets Warren in the opening round of the Season 9 four-man bantamweight tournament at Bellator 101, which takes place tonight at Moda Center in Portland, Ore.

“I’ll deal with whatever comes next afterword, but this fight has held my focus for quite some time now, I’ll tell you,” Kirk told MMAjunkie.com.

The event’s main card, including the Warren vs. Kirk headliner, airs live on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com.

It doesn’t motivate the Minneapolis resident any less that Warren is a face of the promotion as a coach on Bellator’s reality show, “Fight Master.”

“Joe Warren has a huge name,” Kirk said. “A lot of people know Joe Warren. A win over him can change my career overnight. There’s no doubt about that.”

So far, the 30-year-old Kirk is pursuing MMA like countless other fighters, balancing his combative career with a day job. To fight Warren, he’s taken several weeks of leave. But he’s not sure that Warren is as invested in the fight as he is.

“I perform better when I feel a little bit disrespected,” he said. “Joe Warren probably doesn’t know s— about me, and I like that. He doesn’t know what’s coming. He probably looks at me like a nice easy win, and that’s great.”

Kirk anticipates Warren will avoid a standup fight to ensure he doesn’t take the kind of punches he did in fights with Alexis Villa and Pat Curran, which both ended in brutal knockouts. In training camp, Kirk said he’s learned “a couple new tricks” to keep the former champ where he’s least comfortable.

“I think Joe Warren is chinny,” Kirk said. “I know he can get hit, and I know he can get knocked out. I think he relies too much on his wrestling. I don’t even think that he tries to hide the fact that he’s going to try to come out there and take me down. There’s no secret about what he’s going to try to do.

“I’m going to be fighting to finish Joe Warren. I have to leave it all out there and finish him. I’ve been too cautious in the past. I need to go out there and fight like my life depends on it, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

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