Jun. 25—For Christian Edwards, Ben Parrish is out as the Albuquerque resident’s opponent Friday on a Bellator card at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Simon Biyong is in, a pairing made on extremely short notice after Biyong’s scheduled opponent also fell out.
Highly irregular? In MMA, not really.
Nor is there anything irregular, Edwards said, about his heartbeat. So there.
To backtrack:
Edwards (4-0), a light heavyweight who trains at Jackson-Wink, was to have fought Parrish (4-1) on a Bellator card in Uncasville on May 21. But Edwards failed a physical exam performed moments after weighing in the day before, told by a Mohegan Tribe athletic commission doctor that he’d detected an irregular heartbeat.
“I felt fine,” Edwards said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “I wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded or nothing. … (The doctor) listens to my heartbeat and drops that one on me, and I said, ‘What do you mean?’
“He said, your heartbeat’s irregular and I can’t pass you.'”
Dehydration is known to cause irregular heartbeats, and Edwards hadn’t had a chance to rehydrate after his weight cut before he was examined. He asked to be re-examined 20 minutes later, a request that was granted. The outcome, though, was the same: not cleared to fight.
Edwards said he was examined again the next day, and no irregular heartbeat was found. It was too late to reschedule the fight against Parrish, but Edwards was cleared for further action. “It was a really weird, unfortunate situation,” Edwards said, “but lesson learned. Now I know I can’t let (a commission doctor) near me until I’ve had a chance to rehydrate.”
Getting down to the light heavyweight limit of 205 pounds sooner, he’s been told, also might be a good idea. He also weighed in unnecessarily light, at 202 pounds, in May.
“I’m gonna get it right this time,” he said.
So…
Where We Belong: Madeline Sayet — Photo: Jon Burklund/Zanni Productions 
{ // query dom only after user click if (!vdContainer) { vdContainer = document.getElementById(‘videoDetailsContainer’); vdShow = document.getElementById(‘vdt_show’), vdHide = document.getElementById(‘vdt_hide’); } vdContainer.hidden = !(vdContainer.hidden); // show/hide elements if (vdContainer.hidden) { vdShow.hidden = false; vdHide.hidden = true; } else { if (!flagCaption) { flagCaption = true; fireCaptionAnalytics() } vdShow.hidden = true; vdHide.hidden = false; } }); function fireCaptionAnalytics () { let analytics = document.getElementById(“pageAnalytics”); try { if (analytics) { analytics.fireEvent(`${ga_data.route.basePageType}|${section}|${subsection}|streamline|expandCaption`); } else { if (window.newrelic) window.newrelic.noticeError(‘page analytics tag not found’); } } catch (e) { if (window.newrelic) window.newrelic.noticeError(e); } } }()); ]]>
