Bellator 131: The Balancing Act of Melvin Manhoef

How Melvin Manhoef can still walk into any bro pub in the United States and not be recognized is an affront to the dignity of most hardcore MMA fans.

But don't worry; he’s working on it.

“Not so much in America,” Manhoef said when asked about being spotted in public. “They recognize me in Europe and stuff but not here. But it will come.”

The next step will come Saturday when Manhoef—perhaps the most fearsome pure knockout artist in the history of MMA—takes on Joe Schilling at Bellator 131.

It will be Manhoef’s second fight for Bellator. The first, a flattening of well-known tough guy Doug Marshall, earned him a shot at the middleweight title.

This is not that fight, but it does hold the promise of another big highlight, as it comes against a fellow converted kickboxer in Joe Schilling. Not exactly a grappling war in the offing.

“I didn’t have to think as much about takedown defense or my ground game” during this training camp, Manhoef said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “I mean, I did some of that, but I don’t think we’ll do much of that in the actual fight. He’ll want to bang with me, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

That’s where Manhoef shines, and it’s what earns him fans—and there are many of them—around the world.

It’s hard to find an MMA analog for the speed and the power in Manhoef’s hands and feet. His leg kicks slam like line drives to left; his right hook hisses with venom. In racking up a 29-11 pro MMA record, 27 of his wins have come by knockout. No other elite fighter is near that sort of ratio.

So why isn’t he dropping fools in the UFC or at least as a fixture in main events? To this point, it just hasn’t been meant to be for a guy who has made his bones mainly in Europe and Japan. Whenever Manhoef seems ready to get over the proverbial hump, a critical loss brings him back to the pack. A weak ground game and a suspect gas tank are the most common culprits.

Manhoef understands those weaknesses in himself. He also understands that, at age 38, he doesn’t have another decade to fill the gaps.

So there’s a fine line to walk there, a delicate balancing act. Striking is what makes him special, and there are a finite number of opportunities to showcase that to a national audience. Now that, for the first time in his career, he’s fighting regularly on basic cable, he wants to make the most of every chance he gets. And that means laying guys out.

The Bellator brain trust gets it, too, hence this MMA-rules kickboxing match with Schilling.

But the flip side of that coin is that, eventually, he’ll have to beat a great wrestler or grappler in a major fight if he wants to earn a reputation as an objectively great cage fighter—and not just a great striker—and take his own stature to the next level.

So with the time he has left, Manhoef and those around him must work to carefully divvy up his fights and his training energy. Ride the horse that brought you here into a dark pool of risk. 

“I’m glad they didn’t put my ground game to the test,” Manhoef freely admitted in regard to Saturday’s fight.

But he’s quick to add: “My ground game is growing all the time. It’s getting better, and it’s starting to get a little bit solid.”

He made a point of not looking past Schilling: “Nobody’s as good as him at that level of stand-up,” Manhoef said of his opponent. But that title shot is on his mind. More to the point, it’s Brandon Halsey who looms. The Bellator middleweight champion is also a former Division 1 All-American wrestler, just the kind of fighter who can extinguish Manhoef’s attack.

Manhoef can and will please as many more crowds, but that title fight with Halsey will be a reckoning.

“Halsey will try to get me on the ground,” Manhoef said. “The title shot is still on. After this fight, we’ll discuss it.”

He wants to get there. He has to, if he wants to achieve real balance. But for now, he’ll have another chance to bring the house down with a well-tested, if not universally recognized, formula.

“Why should people watch?” Manhoef ponders the question. “Twenty-nine wins, 27 knockouts. That’s really all that needs to be said.”

Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more, follow Scott on Twitter. All quotes obtained firsthand.