Bellator's Bryan Baker Fighting Through Cancer and Opponents Simultaneously

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive, Bellator, NewsBryan Baker walked into the Bellator cage on June 24 with a sense of faith and a sense of fate. He's a spiritual man, an optimistic man, and to him it just seemed like everything was lining up perfectly. He'd won each of his first two tournament matches easily to advance to the middleweight final. He was feeling better than he had in months. He was settling into his new life in a new state. And just one more win would give him a chance to fight for a championship, a goal to which he'd long aspired.

A more pessimistic, or even more practical perspective might have looked at the situation differently. Such viewpoints might have seen things as unsettled at best, unraveling at worst. But dissenting viewpoints had no access to Baker's reality. As he entered the fight against flashy Russian Alexander Shlemenko in Louisville, Kentucky, few were privy to the details of Baker's physical condition. In fact, so closely held was the secret that even his boss, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, was among those who'd been left in the dark.

Unbeknownst to few more than his trainer, his doctor, a few family members and friends, 24-year-old Bryan Baker was competing in the biggest match of his mixed martial arts career while in the midst of a fight with cancer.

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