Cédric Doumbé already has big plans for his next fight.
This Friday at Bellator Paris, Doumbé fights for the first time since suffering a freak TKO loss due to a splinter in his foot this past March. He takes on Jaleel Willis in the co-main event.
Though Willis has plenty of MMA experience compared to Doumbé, it’s another MMA veteran that the former kickboxing champion has set his sights on: Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
Doumbé brought up the possibility of fighting Pettis several times during a Wednesday appearance on The MMA Hour, before stating that the matchup is all but official with a win over Willis.
“Yeah, 99 percent a done deal,” Doumbé said. “The next one. … It’s going to be in Saudi Arabia, pay-per-view, and probably the Arabian crowd will be good. Welterweight. PFL.”
For Pettis’ part, he has made it clear that he also expects the Doumbé fight to happen next.
See you Friday @CedricDoumbe https://t.co/4Lce3pJGO4
— Anthony Pettis (@Showtimepettis) May 14, 2024
Pettis told MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin that he will be in attendance at Accor Arena and it’s likely he will issue a challenge if Doumbé impresses against Willis.
Though Pettis’ PFL run has mostly been a disappointment so far, with just one win in five league appearances, he still brings plenty of name value to any matchup. “Showtime” was a star in the UFC and WEC, winning titles in both promotions and cementing himself as one of the most exciting fighters in MMA.
By contrast, Doumbé is just beginning his MMA career. After transitioning from kickboxing, he knocked out his first five opponents before taking his first loss in bizarre fashion against Baissangour Chamsoudinov. “Baki” officially won via TKO after Doumbé signaled to referee Marc Goddard that there was debris poking into his foot, which resulted in Goddard waving off the bout.
Doumbé claims that Chamsoudinov was offered a rematch, but declined because he wants his win over Doumbé to be forever preserved.
“He’s running,” Doumbé said. “This is the only way he could win a fight against Cédric Doumbé, so he will never, never, ever step into the cage in front of Cédric Doumbé because he felt what he felt during the first round. His game plan was take me down, hold me on the floor, and maybe submit me or finish me on the ground, but he couldn’t do it. So now he’s like, ‘I cannot beat that guy. Thank God, thank the splinter, thanks Marc, so this time I will just take my chance. I won against Cédric Doumbé.’
“If you ask him, he will say, ‘Yeah, I beat Cédric Doumbé. I won, TKO, bro, I beat Cédric Doumbé. So now I’m safe. Why do I need to go back into the cage against him?’ So he’s running. He doesn’t want to fight. I understand, but I thought he was a man, like a real man, but he’s not, so now I’m just moving on and the next fight is going to be Anthony Pettis. Way better than him, so let’s move on.”
Doumbé appears to be taking his first MMA loss in stride and he jokingly agreed with Chamsoudinov’s logic for not pursuing a rematch.
“He’s happy,” Doumbé said. “If you make me fight Jon Jones and because of a splinter I win by TKO against Jon Jones, why do I have to take a rematch? I don’t want to. I beat Jon Jones. I’m the baddest motherf*cker on the planet. I beat Jon Jones. So that’s why he’s talking. He can only talk on Twitter, he can only talk on social media, because now he knows that on his record he can be the only guy who beat Cédric Doumbé.”
