Bellator 115's Jeremy Kimball looking for middleweight tourney redemption

After a disappointing outing in Bellator’s Season 9 middleweight tournament, Jeremy Kimball has redemption on his mind.

Kimball put together a big first round against Perry Filkins this past September at Bellator 98. But a strong second and third for Filkins got him the win. Now Kimball (10-4 MMA, 1-1 BMMA) returns for the first time since that loss and meets Dan Cramer (10-4 MMA, 7-2 BMMA) in the Season 10 tourney’s semifinals on Friday at Bellator 115.

“I feel like it’s a second chance, and I’m going to do something with it,” Kimball told MMAjunkie. “I was super disappointed after I lost to Perry Filkins. I’ve never been to the hospital after a fight, and I had to go after that one. I don’t want to make any excuses, but I hurt myself in the first round of that fight, and just tried to fight through it. I broke my middle finger of my left hand. That affected my punching, so I kept trying to shoot takedowns. I have no excuses, though – I lost that night and he was the better guy. But I definitely want that rematch.”

“Bellator 115: Minakov vs. Kongo” takes place at Reno Events Center in Nevada with a main card on Spike TV at 9 p.m. ET following prelims on Spike.com at 7 p.m. ET.

Much of Kimball’s drive to succeed in MMA comes from watching many of those around him, including brothers and sisters, go through struggles.

He said he has a brother who went down the wrong path with drugs, and wound up in prison and then deported. (Kimball is the only one of his siblings born in America; three others were born in Germany.) A sister had her own problems with alcohol.

“That event had the biggest influence on me,” Kimball said. “Even before he was deported and was getting in trouble and involved in drugs, just that was hard for me to see. … That was all the motivation I needed to walk the straight line.”

The 23-year-old Kimball also uses his own past shortcomings as a push. He didn’t finish high school because his grades weren’t up to snuff, which kept him from taking a promising high school wrestling career to the next level.

Now those who didn’t believe in him in the past serve as a reminder for what he wants to do to show he can succeed.

“What keeps me going is the drive to be a world champion,” he said. “That’s pretty much it. I was never that guy who was looked at as the best, and I’m still not. I want to prove everyone wrong who ever looked at me and said that by becoming a world champ.”

Kimball, who said his father helped create a Japanese-American ground blend called shingitai jiu-jitsu, could, in theory, have the edge on the mat against Cramer if the fight goes there.

But he also believes his opponent might want to scrap on the feet – and that’s no problem for him.

“Dan Cramer is a tough guy,” Kimball said. It seems like he likes to be on top, but he likes to brawl too. I need to be ready to go all three rounds. He’s got good upper-body takedowns and he seems to be really aggressive. He likes to keep coming forward at you the whole fight.

“I think just my striking will be the advantage. I’m a chubby guy and people think, ‘Oh, he’s gotta be slow.’ But I’m a lot faster than they think. I’m craftier than people think, too. So my experience and diversity will also be valuable.”

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