With only two fights left on his Bellator contract, 41-year-old Joe Warren doesn’t quite know what his future will look like after that.

“I feel like I’m 100 percent, (but) my wife is telling me it’s time to get out,” Warren told MMAjunkie Radio. “So we’ll see what happens.”

Warren is currently moving to Telluride, Colo., with his family. He’s recently taken a job at Sotheby’s International Realty company, and though he doesn’t feel his age, there’s a chance that his two final Bellator appointments may also be the last ones of his MMA career.

But let’s leave the goodbyes for when it’s time to say them. Instead, let’s focus on some beginnings, as Warren (15-7 MMA, 13-6 BMMA) tells the tale of his rough introduction to MMA.

The year was 2009. Warren, then a world-class wrestler with multiple titles on the international circuit, was snowboarding in Aspen when he got a call from former PRIDE champion and fellow Greco-Roman wrestler Dan Henderson.

“He’s like, ‘Yo, I’ve got a fight for you,’” Warren recalled. “And I’m like, ‘I don’t fight.’”

Henderson said that Warren had just had a kid and needed money, and there was “30 grand” on the line for this one. There were a couple of catches, though: The fight was set to take place in Japan – and Warren would only get eight days to prepare for it.

“So I just jump on a plane, fly to Temecula,” Warren said. “I’m there for three days, and we go to Japan. That’s all the screening I had.”

That wasn’t the end of Warren’s scares. Just as he was about to go out for his MMA debut – after the long flight from California – at DREAM 7 against 15-fight veteran Chase Beebe, he got confronted with a question that he didn’t quite have the right answer for at the time.

“My buddy goes, ‘You know what jiu-jitsu is?’” Warren said. “I’m like, ‘No.’ And he’s like, ‘This guy submitted his last eight guys. … So I’m like, ‘Dan, what’s jiu-jitsu?’ He’s like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t worry about it? This guy submitted his last eight guys.’ They’re like ‘shut up’ and they start looking on their phones. Stuff like that, ‘Don’t take him to the ground.’ I’m like, ‘What else do I do?’”

For accuracy purposes, former WEC champ Beebe wasn’t coming off an eight-fight submission streak into the meeting with Warren; he was, in fact, on a two-fight skid. Prior to that, though, Beebe had indeed choked out nine of his opponents.

Warren managed to walk away with a first-round TKO win. But that doesn’t mean things got easy for the former wrestler from then on.

His next meeting was with “Kid” Norifumi Yamamoto, who was then on a 14-fight tear – 13 of those victories were finishes. Warren pulled off a massive upset and then, taking a split-decision call, he lost to current ONE Championship champ Bibiano Fernandes in his third pro bout.

“They put some lead boots on me and threw me on the deep end; I was fighting for my life most those fights,” Warren said of his beginnings in MMA. “ … We’d never watch tape because the guys were so nasty my coaches didn’t want me to see it.”

Warren had his stellar wrestling to fall back on, but he knew he’d have to expand his toolset – and stick to his guns for the most part – if he wanted to succeed.

“I’m the opposite of a wrestler,” Warren said. “Most wrestlers, once we start striking, we’re very overconfident people. We believe we’re the best strikers in the world – because we have a good coach who knows how to hold mitts, so it sounds really good. So we feel like we can stand in front of anyone.

“But I was a realist. I understood. I’m standing in front of a guy that’s a five-time world champ striker. There’s no way I’m going to play that game with him. So I was using a lot of my striking for short offense, to close the distance, so I could get to those takedowns.”

Game plans, however, have a way of occasionally shifting shape once one gets in a cage – which meant Warren’s striking had to expand further than that. And even if Warren isn’t great at securing fight-finishing positions once he fight hits the ground, his “anti-jiu-jitsu” helps him evade the ones that pose danger to him.

Warren, who’s coming off a split-decision loss to Joe Taimanglo at Bellator 195, is currently in the process of talking to Bellator frontman Scott Coker to figure out his next steps. He doesn’t know where or when the two final fights of his contract will take place, but he knows he wants to “go out in style” and make sure they’re on bigger cards.

He can still be seen on TV, though, as “The Ultimate Fighter 27” wraps up. Warren served as one of the coaches on heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic’s team and got some praise from contestants who went on MMAjunkie Radio to address their season wins afterward.

Would he be interested in following in the footsteps of some peers, such as fellow former wrestler and current UFC champion Daniel Cormier, and add head coach to his list of activities? Warren is careful not to set any hard plans when it comes to that.

But, whether it’s in wrestling or MMA, it’s hard to miss the passion with which he talks about it.

“I have so much to give back; that’s where I kind of feel like I should be giving back,” Warren said. “I’m just – I’m not sure. We’re coming out to Telluride now, here, trying to maybe even give up athletics. Which is kind of strange for me. I always thought I’d be teaching somebody wrestling. That’s what I do the best. …

“It’s always open to me. I believe I’m a great coach. Why? Because I’m the best coachable athlete there is. I’m a realist, so I understand what it means to get into a cage or get into a competition. So it’s easy for me to hype those guys. I would love to do that some day, I think. I think I have so much to give back and I haven’t done that, yet.”

For more on the upcoming Bellator schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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