Chris Gonzalez fights outside the United States for the first time on Friday at Bellator 296 in Paris.
The Alpha Male lightweight team is looking to make it two teams in a row when they take on Tim Wilde, the same night one of the quarterfinal rounds of the Bellator Lightweight Championship goes down.
Gonzalez is no stranger to big fights himself. Last year, after kicking his head at Saad Awad, Gonzalez found himself locked in a fight with Usman Nurmagomedov. He was knocked down in the opening round by the man who would go on to win the title in his next fight.
“It was quite impressive. I have to tip my hat to the guy,” Gonzalez (8-2) told Cageside Press on the subject of Nurmagomedov during Bellator 296’s media day this week. “I think he took advantage, and he caught me very early on in that fight with that very witty submission. I didn’t respect it at first, and he really just dragged his arm in there and locked it pretty well. So I don’t want to take anything away from him. I think he’s been a dominant champ up until this point.” I look forward to another encounter in the future.”
The short trip to Paris gave Gonzalez a chance to see more of the world, and he’s taken advantage of that since his arrival. “I actually made a little bit of time to kind of get out of town and walk around, to get the blood flowing,” he said.
It helps, at least a little bit, by giving him something to focus on after the fight itself. “Yeah. I’m obviously focused on fighting and that’s where my thought process will be a lot of the time, but it’s nice to get out of the hotel room and see the world,” Gonzalez said.
As for the wrinkles that can arise from traveling to fight, “trying to catch up on sleep is a little different,” Gonzalez admitted, noting that he worked to adjust his sleep schedule during the plane ride to Paris. And so it was “kind of an adjustment, but it’s a nice challenge that I embrace, and it’s going well.”
Watch the full Bellator 296 media appearance by Chris Gonzalez above.