Chris Bungard feels he deserves main card slot over Aaron Chalmers at Bellator London

MMAfighting.com

Chris Bungard put himself on the map by becoming the first Scottish fighter to claim a Bellator win in his promotional debut against former double BAMMA champion Terry Brazier in February.

Following his first-round submission of Brazier, “The Bad Guy” hoped that his Bellator London clash against Charlie Leary would be given precedent on the main card, but was surprised to discover he would instead be on the preliminary portion of the event.

“I think the fans are going to like it,” Bungard told Eurobash, in relation to his booking against Leary. “It should be on the main card, which I’m not too happy about.”

Despite his four-fight win streak and the momentum he gained from his win over Brazier, Bungard isn’t anticipating an easy night’s work when he locks horns with the English veteran.

“He comes to fight, he hits hard, he’s got good hands, he’s hard to take down and he’s a purple belt on the deck as well, same as me. To people who don’t really know MMA that well, they might think I’m automatically going to win because I won my last fight and he lost his, which isn’t the case,” he explained.

“This guy is a beast. He’s not said anything bad about me, so I won’t say anything bad about him, but I just know it’s going to be a good one for the fans.”

Although he is keeping things cordial with Leary ahead of their meeting, Bungard is no stranger to online rivalries.

Ahead of his Bellator debut, it looked as though he was on the verge of setting up a clash with Aaron Chalmers—one of the most polarizing figures on Bellator’s European roster given his celebrity on the back of his success with MTV reality television show, Geordie Shore.

After Chalmers suffered his first career defeat to Corey Browning in Newcastle, the animosity between Chalmers and Bungard seemed to disappear. As far as Bungard is concerned, “The Joker” is completely off his radar.

“He’s lost now. He knows what it’s like to be a real fighter now,” Bungard said. “This is where his journey really begins. How does he come back? Does he train harder? They brought in a hillbilly to get beat and the guy ended up beating him. What would I do to him? I’d probably kill him in there!”

“That’s not a fight I want. He’s on the London card. I’ve had a wee talk to him and he’s not a bad guy.”

He might not think much of the opposition Chalmers has faced to date, but Bungard underlined that his former online nemesis earned his respect in defeat after the Newcastle card.

“I did respect him after both of our fights in Newcastle. He did a media scrum even though he lost. Right away when I saw that I knew I respected him for that. He went and spoke to the media after losing in his hometown, so I like that about him,” he stated.

“He’s still getting matched against people who can’t fight and that last guy was sh*te. In this next show, they’ll probably even go a bit below the hillbilly to try and get him a win again, but fair play to him. He’s with a good team and he’s putting the work in. He will improve by working with that team.”

He admitted that it’s annoying to see someone who is less experienced and is taking on lesser opposition being given a slot on the main card ahead of him.

“Of course [it’s annoying]. I ran that show in Newcastle. I stole the show, there was a great atmosphere, it was like a football match. He was on after me and it stunk out the arena. It was low. This guy follows me up and in London it’s going to be the same, I’m going to be on the prelims.

“[Bellator] have a good world title fight that night,” he added. “There’s a few brilliant fights. They’ve got Gegard Mousasi who’s amazing, Paul Daley is an animal and they have Jimmy Gallagher. They’re all main card fights, so slot me under them instead of putting [Chalmers] in.”

Bungard was sure though to outline how happy he is with the promotion after signing a career-changing contract.

“Bellator, Jude Samuel especially, that guy saved my life by picking up the phone and phoning me; I owe him a lot. The goal for me is to hopefully beat Charlie in London and then I would like to bring Bellator to Scotland. I think I’ve got a good enough following to sell in the Hydro. If they put a few more guys on the card, we could sell it out, I think,” he said.