Brennan Ward has fought on five separate occasions at the Mohegan Sun, not far from where he grew up in New London, Connecticut. He won four of those fights, and lost once to Tamdan McCrory. Each time he fights there he brings a good portion of New England in to root for him. It is always a Brennan Ward crowd when Bellator visits the Mohegan reservation.
So when he got the call to fight in Japan on Dec. 29, on the inaugural Rizin card as a Bellator loaner, the 27-year old saw it as an adventure — something well beyond the norm.