November 26th, 2011. Eric Prindle is nailed by a Thiago Santos kick to the junk the likes of which we haven’t seen since Monster Squad. With Prindle unable to recover from the horrifying shot to his nether region, the fight is ruled a no contest. Bjorn Rebney and every male witness to the act nods and grimaces, even Santos. The Bellator heavyweight tournament finals would have to go down in season six.
Fast forward to Wednesday, March 14th, 2012. Feel free to add cool zooming sound effects to the fast forwarding in your mind. Eric Prindle is speaking to Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith when all of a sudden he starts barfing uncontrollably. Dude’s got the flu. They give it the day to see if the illness passes. The next day the Louisiana commission takes a look at Prindle and decides that he should be at home under the covers replenishing his fluids instead of in a cage punching another man for a shot at the Bellator title. Prindle wants to fight, but the bout gets pushed back a week. Santos is fine with the decision, he wants to fight a ‘100%’ opponent.
Now here we are: Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 and Thiago Santos has just come in eleven pounds over weight for his tournament finals bout. Because of this, it turns out Eric Prindle’s true test to get beyond the finals of the Bellator tournament was to get kicked in the nards in a really nasty way all those months ago and contract a bad case of influenza. No one thinks less of him for it either, especially us, and most importantly Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. Mauro just broke the news that Eric Prindle has been declared winner of the season five heavyweight tournament…a few weeks into season six and without having to throw a punch since November:
Huge props to Prindle no matter how this whacky finals ended. Hopefully we can see him Vs. former Frate Trane Cole Konrad soon.
