After Bellator 141 upset, Brandon Girtz recalls in-fight chat with Melvin Guillard

Melvin Guillard apparently was allowed to pick his opponent for this past Friday’s Bellator 141 headliner. Midway through the fight, his opponent, Brandon Girtz, reminder him that it was a bad idea.

Girtz (12-4 MMA, 5-2 BMMA) rocked Guillard (34-14-2 MMA, 0-1 BMMA), a UFC and WSOF vet who was making his Bellator debut, early with a punch and then continually took him to the mat to score a split-decision victory (watch the highlights below).

Prior to the fight, in which Girtz was a 3-1 underdog, Guillard told MMAjunkie he handpicked his opponent. During one exchange in Friday’s Spike-televised headliner, which took place at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif., Girtz got to do a little gloating.

“I told him right away that was a bad decision,” Girtz told MMAjunkie after the event. “He learned it in that fight. He even said – like with the fifth takedown – he said, ‘Man, screw you.’

“I said, ‘You shouldn’t have picked me.’ And that was all said right in the middle of the fight.”

Guillard, who said he broke his hand in the fight, rallied in the third round, but it was too little, too late. Still, Girtz admitted the veteran striker was no pushover.

“He was tougher than I thought,” said 30-year-old Girtz, who’s now won two straight and four of his past five, all under the Bellator banner. “I mean, to tell you the truth, I’m very confident in myself and always have been. I thought I was going to finish him, especially being on top that whole first round. In the second round, I thought I was breaking him, and he kept coming. He’s a tough dude. And he hit me with a nice 15-piece combo there at the end.”

Check out the full conversation above.

And for more on Bellator 141, check out the MMA Events section of the site.

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