Not Your Average Joe

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Joe Warren has no trouble forgetting the events of Sept. 24, 2011, primarily because he does not remember much of them.

Victimized in one of the year’s most violent knockouts, Warren lasted just 64 seconds with 1996 Olympic bronze medalist Alexis Vila in the first round of the Bellator Fighting Championships Season 5 bantamweight tournament; thus ended his thoughts of becoming the first two-division titleholder in the fledgling promotion’s brief history.

Warren (7-2, 5-1 BFC) will climb back into the cage for the first time since his ill-fated encounter with Vila when he defends his featherweight championship against the surging Pat Curran in the Bellator 60 main event on Friday at The Venue at Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind. There, the 35-year-old hopes to put to bed the unsettling images of his lying unconscious, stiff as a board, at Vila’s feet.

“I feel like I was the best fighter I’ve ever been in my last fight,” Warren told Sherdog.com. “I just got overextended and got caught with a money shot. It’s hard to be upset about it when I don’t remember it because I was sleeping. There’s not anything I can do about that. That loss is just pushing me harder to make sure I keep this belt around my waist. I’m a warrior and a champion, so I’m used to the ups and downs of life. I’m used to bouncing back from things.

“You learn so much from a loss,” he added. “The loss to Alexis definitely made me a lot more aware and mature in the cage. It prepared me for things that I didn’t think could happen. It definitely let me know what a clean shot can do to a guy. I don’t like to see it this way, but, honestly, that defeat was the best thing for me at that time. It’s made me a lot sharper and forced me to grow.”

Warren will step into the line of fire against one of the division’s hottest fighters upon his return. Curran, a former lightweight, has won three fights in a row and seven of his last eight. The 24-year-old secured his date with Warren with a spectacular head kick knockout on former Sengoku champion and Nova Uniao standout Marlon Sandro at Bellator 48.

Curran, an excellent counterpuncher, packs a serious wallop, and his size has become one of Warren’s primary concerns.

“The size advantage Pat is going to bring into this fight is going to be an obvious problem for me,” he said. “He’s just a bigger body. You put another 10 to 20 pounds on a guy our size, and it makes quite a difference. He’s just a bigger body for me to deal with, so that’s what I’m focusing on in the gym -- just having bigger guys come at me all day.”

An accomplished Greco-Roman wrestler who won gold at the 2006 Pan-Am Games, the 2006 FILA Wrestling World Championships and the 2007 Wrestling World Cup, Warren was a collegiate All-American at the University of Michigan. He expects those skills to come into play against a larger opponent.

“I think one of my advantages is that I don’t think Pat has been in some of the battles that I’ve been in,” Warren said. “My confidence is really high for this fight. I’m focused on controlling the tempo of this fight, winning all of the scrambles, taking him down and keeping him on his back. To be honest, I’m not worried about what Pat’s doing right now. The only thing I’m focused on is my training and making sure that I take care of everything I have to get done to win this fight.

“I see myself keeping my hands up, not making any mistakes and controlling him from the top,” he added. “I see myself landing punches from the top and trying to submit him. I want to control the pace on the feet and on the ground. I really don’t see anything else other than me walking out of that arena with my belt around my waist. It could be a long fight or it could be a short fight, but I’m ready for a long, grueling fight if that’s what it takes. I know he’s going to come hard, but I think he knows that might not be hard enough.”

During his brief but eventful mixed martial arts career, Warren has become known as one of the sport’s preeminent showmen. His knockout loss to Vila has done nothing to soften his image.

“I would tell Pat to try to find a way out of this fight because he’s never been in the cage with someone like me,” Warren said. “He’s never been in a war like I’m going to bring to him. I’m going to put Pat in a position where he doubts himself. That’s a comfortable position for me but not for everyone else. I’m going to put him on his back every single round, and he’s going to be so upset with me because he can’t get up. He’s going to be trying his little jiu-jitsu moves while I’m pounding him in the mouth. I’m not holding anything back in this fight. I’m going to leave everything in the cage.

“A lot of my opponents get mad because I tell them what they don’t want to hear,” he added. “I tell them the truth. I tell them exactly what’s going to happen to them, and they think I’m talking s---. I’m not talking s---. I’m telling you what’s going to happen to you. I’m going to [expletive] run you down and make you wish to God that you never took this fight.”