Joe Warren details why he was pulled from last fight

Earlier this month, former Bellator featherweight champion Joe Warren was determined to be ineligible to fight by the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulation, following a review of medical documentation he submitted.

Although no details were released as to the nature of the medical issue, Michael Mazzulli, Director of Athletic Regulation for the Mohegan Tribe, is widely respected and acclaimed for putting fighter safety first.

Now, in an interview with MMAFighting, Warren explains why the fight was cancelled. There had been unsubstantiated reports that Warren was knocked out in training, but that rumor was flatly denied.

“Nothing like that ever happened,” said Warren.

“I was never knocked out at all. This whole camp has been structured around me not getting hurt, me not taking any punishment, me slipping punches, making sure that I’m not in any danger. I’m the safest athlete I’ve ever been.”

Instead, the cause was an abnormality on his MRI.

“They were telling me that I had a stroke. That I was never fighting,” said Warren. “It was crazy.”

“It was all a mistake. We had three different doctors reading the image wrong from thousands of miles away.”

The medical term for it is “image abnormality.” Warren has another description.

“It sounds to me like they read the image wrong,” he said.

“My coach and everyone were so upset. We’ve been doing everything humanely possible to get ready for this fight, and then this happens.”

“I peaked. My coaches, my sports physiologists, they had to re-peak me. We were peaked, then I had to maintain a peak because I wasn’t if I was fighting that next week, and then it took a few weeks to be able to get where I am now. The weight was up and down, plus just dealing with the stress issue.”

“This is a very unpredictable sport. A lot of s— happens in it, so I just roll with the punches, pretty much.”

Warren is now scheduled to fight Nick “The Big Hurt” Kirk Friday night at Bellator 101.

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