UNCASVILLE, Conn. – His fight came up quick, without a lot of pageantry or preamble. And, though he faced his first moment of adversity in the cage, Ed Ruth was able to get his first professional win in mixed martial arts.
Ruth made his debut during the preliminary portion of Bellator 163 on Friday night against Dustin Collins-Miles. The former Penn State three-time national champion wrestler took a pretty wicked punch early that threatened to ruin his first showing.
"At that point I really got my bell rung," Ruth said at the post-fight press conference. "It was just like, that was a wake up. Because usually I start, when I was wrestling I'd start matches really slow, and when he rocked me I was like, okay, it was weird. Because I felt it and I didn't feel it. All of a sudden I'm hearing like, deeeee [makes noise], and I was like, he's still right there, there's not two of them. And I was like attack that guy."
When Collins-Miles stunned Ruth, the first thing the collegiate wrestle did was default to his hard-wiring — he shot in for a double-leg.
"When one of your senses is out of it, you just kind of go with what you're most comfortable with," he said. "I can wrestle blind, to be honest with you."
Ruth, 26, ultimately was able to recover, take the fight to the canvas, and then finish Collins-Miles via TKO in the first round. Yet with his wrestling pedigree, people wondered why his debut wasn't on the televised main card, on Spike TV, especially after bouts between Marloes Coenen-Talita Nogueira and Paul Daley-Derek Anderson were scrapped due to weight and weight-cutting issues respectively.
However, Ruth's quick work of Collins-Miles was shown later on the telecast to fill time in between fights. And that, Ruth said, was perfectly alright by him.
"I love the way they did it," he said. "They made us feel like a prelim, and the wound up putting it on TV anyway, that way it took it off my nerves while I'm not thinking about, okay this is on TV, a lot of people could see this. It just makes it easier for me to go out there and fight and just kind of perform. Because you don't want to think about anything else outside of your game plan and your fight. So I was kind of happy with the way that worked out."