14/04/2020
Søren Bak 🇩🇰⚔️🔥
Bellator Prospect Watch: Soren Bak
By Dan McConnell
The Bellator Prospect Watch series returns in where I take a look at the top talents who are anything between rising stars currently under contract to recently signed fighters from other promotions.
With the organisation being forced to hold back events for the foreseeable future due to the Coronavirus pandemic, let’s take a look at the next best Bellator prospect in the world of mixed martial arts!
Bellator has made a real commitment to European mixed martial arts in the past two years. They’ve sgned a whole list of top talents to add to their current crop and also have brought their famous cage to the UK, Ireland and wider Europe to show the rest of the world what the region has to offer.
Signing a whole host of European talent has paid dividends, and this Bellator prospect I will be focusing on is from Storstrom in Denmark, was just recently signed to the promotion at the end of 2019.
Soren ‘The True Viking’ Bak is one of the most talented and impressive of these European signings, who currently competes in the 155-pound lightweight division.
The Dane-Bak, is currently 27-years old while entering the prime of his career. He has had an incredible mixed martial arts career to date since turning professional in 2012.
‘The True Viking’ has fought for promotions such as Royal Arena, European MMA, Cage, ICE FC, Euro Fc, Cage Warriors and now brings his defined skills to Bellator MMA’s promotion.
In his amateur career Bak defeated Kenneth Hog and Jason Forssell both due to submission via rear-naked choke in the very first round. Two clean finishes would set the Scandanavian fighter up to swiftly turn professional.
The lightweight continued his unbeaten streak and won his first seven professional bouts, until facing defeat to Aleksi Mantykivi at the prestigious Euro Fc first event, who caught him with a quick and stunning punch in the very first round. Widely renounced referee Marc Goddard stepped in to end the contest.
After suffering a devastating loss and the only defeat on his record, Bak still caught the attention of Cage Warriors who signed him in 2017. He got back on the saddle and went 6-0 with the promotion as well as taking his overall professional record to 12-1 at the time.
Defeating the likes of former unbeaten 155-pounder Alexander Jacobsen, face of the company Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett and French featherweight Morgan Charriere on his quest for Cage Warriors gold.
Before signing with Bellator, Bak held the Cage Warriors lightweight title as well as the interim-featherweight strap and has brought the tag as one of the most decorated fighters in Europe.
Unfortunately, due to injury he was unable to fight for the promotions featherweight title and chance to become a Cage Warriors two-weight world champion.
But as we know, holding a Cage Warriors title will instantaneously catch the attention of the UFC brass and other organisations further afield.
Bak had the opportunity to join the UFC’s lightweight division and held extensive talks with them, due to the UFC and Cage Warriors excellent relationship. Also, with UFC Copenhagen on the horizon in September 2019 it seemed certain he would get the call up.
However, ‘The True Viking’ decided against this and made his choice as Bellator MMA to be his new home and promotion to continue his rise to the top of mixed martial arts.
I personally don’t think Soren gets the credit he deserves, especially with his gruelling wrestling and slick submission game. The 155-pounder isn’t known for his trash talk and is very respectful to his opponents, this may be a factor in the current entertainment age.
Bak made his Bellator debut at Bellator London in November 2019, on the MVP vs Melillo card. His opponent was another former two division champion in Terry ‘The Dominator’ Brazier who held the lightweight and welterweight gold at the promotion BAMMA before its closure.
As Bak said in an interview ‘I want to dominate The Dominator’ which proved to be successful. In what was a calculated and well put together plan for his opponent, Bak took his professional record to 13-1 and unbeaten streak to six in a row with a unanimous decision over the Brit-Brazier.
The sky is the limit for the Scandinavian fighter, who maybe shouldn’t be considered a prospect for much longer and more a title contender to Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire’s crown.
After successfully making his debut at the end of 2019, it will be interesting to see who his next match-up will be. I don’t think it should be long until we see Bak face off for the title, but his stock will no doubt continue to rise throughout Bellator’s European series!
