BAMMA head to the SSE Arena Belfast this Friday and topping the bill in Northern Ireland it's a BAMMA lightweight title fight between Paul Redmond and Norman Parke. 

Redmond walks into the bout having last competed at BAMMA 26 in Oct. 2016 where he picked up an impressive victory over Chris Stringer having stepped back up to lightweight. Speaking exclusively to FloCombat this week, Redmond talked about how lightweight was much his preferred weight class and how it was only in the UFC that he'd fought at featherweight.

"The [1]45 cut is just horrible to do," Redmond said. "My last fight was at [1]55 against Chris Stringer and my only two fights at [1]45 were with the UFC so it's just not my weight class. It just takes too much out my body.

"I walk around at about 82 kilos so I'm decent sized lightweight. The cut to [1]45 was just too hard so for this [fight] it obviously just made sense to do it at lightweight again. The cut to 155 is simple you know."

Late last year, Redmond looked set to make his Bellator debut in December at the Bellator 169 card at the 3 Arena in Dublin. Unfortunately for Redmond, he suffered an elbow injury in October during training and was forced to withdraw from the fight with Daniel Weichel. Redmond says he's made a full recovery now and that it wasn't as bad as he may have looked aesthetically with the big cast he wore.

"It's 100-percent now," Redmond confirmed. "It was really superficial in the fact it was a small break in the elbow under my arm and there was just a little half inch thing cracked off the bone. We just let it heal up nice for six weeks and then we eased back into training before Christmas.

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"We hit the ground running as soon as this fight got announced and we got booked for this fight. The camps been good and it's not a problem to me anymore."

The respect between the two fighters on Friday night goes without saying and the build up to the fight has been absent of any trash talking. Asked whether he prefers having needle with his opponent, Redmond said he'd been through pre-fight builds with both and that truth be told, he cared little for what his opponent was saying anyway.

"I've had it both ways before," Redmond said. "I've had guys slating me and I've ended up going in there and taking the win. I've also had good respectful opponents and I've won fights under those circumstances as well. I do prefer it this way because I'm not one for trash talking or whatever. So, me personally, I always stay away from it.

"Everyone knows that me and Norman know each other so I don't think there's any need for it with this fight. It's a big fight whatever we say."

Both fighters have come out saying they think they match up well with one another and that it should be a good spectacle for the fans to witness on Friday night. Redmond believes the two have similar styles and that it's going to come down to who's able to execute on the night.

"I think we're really similar in the way that we always move forward and put the pressure on," Redmond said. "We both look for takedowns and feel comfortable on top so yeah, it's an interesting fight in terms of who can put together the best gameplan on the night.

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"Whoever puts together the best gameplan and is able to get it done is what I think will win the fight."

In his last performance against Stringer, Redmond displayed a well versed all round game and took home a clear unanimous decision victory. The Irishman believes on Friday night he gets another opportunity to impress again and he's hoping to showcase his full repertoire of skills.

"I just think you shouldn't get stagnant at what you do and that you shouldn't just keep doing what you do all the time," Redmond said. "I think [against Stringer] I really mixed up my striking and my takedowns nicely. I wasn't able to implement my ground game because he was tough to takedown, but at the end of the day it was a good performance of doing what I wanted to do.

"On Friday, you're going to see more of the same. Hopefully I get to show off my striking a little bit on Friday night because no one has really seen that much of my striking. If I can do what I do in the gym on fight night then it will open up some people's eyes to the fact I'm a complete martial artist rather than just a wrestling or jiu-jitsu guy."

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