Alaska’s Ben Bennett was crowned the 2017 IMMAF world champion in Bahrain. He makes his professional MMA debut at Brave 13: Europe Evolution, set for Belfast, Northern Ireland on June 9th.
He explains that he made the decision to turn pro with Brave while at the amateur world championship in the nation’s capital of Manama. He had the opportunity to get a backstage pass to Brave 9: The Kingdom of Champions and was happy to see how the promotion worked. A meeting with His Highness Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa also helped solidify his decision.
“I chose to sign for Brave to make my professional debut after attending Brave 9,” said Bennett. “I met His Highness Sheikh Khalid and other top officials and they were all very nice to me, and seemed trustworthy people, which means a lot to me. I got to see the behind the scenes and really liked the way the organization works and how much effort goes into each event.
“I was very intrigued with how Brave keeps growing consistently online and gathers a great fan base with each event, and they caught my attention with that. After I became world champion there were a lot of promotions after me, but I wanted to sign for an organization that wanted to grow together with me and that’s Brave.”
Bennett will fight Adam Byrne, who’s also making his professional debut. However, Bennett says going through the IMMAF amateur system has given him enough experience to not feel any pressure going into his first fight as a pro.
“I feel I have made the best use possible of the IMMAF system,” he reports. “I have been with them since their first few events and, after trying for four years, I was finally able to become world champion at the amateur level. I used this time in the amateur scene to build a large following and took the time to learn from my losses and from the mistakes I made. I’m leaving the amateur ranks with a 30-3 record so I’m more than ready for my pro debut!”
Brave 13: Euro Evolution will be held at The SSE Arena, in Belfast. The main event will be a rematch for the Bantamweight title as current champion Stephen Loman tries to go 2-0 against challenger Frans Mlambo. The co-main event is set for a Catchweight of 73 kg between former UFC fighter Norman Parke and Myles Price.
Brave 13 full fight card:
Stephen Loman (c) vs. Frans Mlambo for the bantamweight title
Norman Parke vs. Myles Price
Karl Amoussou vs. Rodrigo Cavalheiro
Andy Young vs. Bryan Creighton
Declan Dalton vs. Zack Zane
Sidney Wheeler vs. Mohammad Fakhreddine
Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady vs. Erik Carlsson
Konrad Iwanowski vs. Glenn Irvine
Chad Hanekom vs. Tarek Suleiman
Cian Cowley vs. Daniel Olejniczak
Ben Bennett vs. Adam Byrne
Piotr Tokarski vs. Sam Slater
Aidan James vs. Tommy Martin
Northern Ireland will become the ninth country to host a Brave Combat Federation, after Bahrain, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Jordan, and Indonesia.
