Grove looks to unbelt Halsey in Bellator MMA main event

Five years after winning the Ultimate Fighter reality show, Kendall Grove was cut from the UFC.

That was 2011, a time when Grove concedes he thought about giving up on his fighting career.

He returned to Hawaii to compete in the short-lived ProEliteMMA organization and won two fights, but still didn’t have a permanent place to compete.

Since then, he has fought in Colombia, Poland, Australia, and even on his home island of Maui, hanging on, waiting for another opportunity to get back to the big stage.

Friday night at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif., that opportunity presents itself in the form of 28-year-old Brandon Halsey, the undefeated Bellator MMA world middleweight champion.

Halsey will defend his belt against Grove in the main event of Bellator 137 that will be shown on a same-day delay on SpikeTV (Oceanic Ch. 1559) at 6 p.m. Hawaii time.

Grove (21-14) fought in eight different promotions after leaving the UFC before finally finding a home with Bellator.

He’s 2-1 with the promotion and coming off an impressive enough second-round submission victory to earn a title shot against Halsey.

"I wasn’t expecting it," Grove said on Tuesday. "I was kind of saying to people I might get it just because I beat a former light heavyweight champion, but I wasn’t for sure.

"I got (the fight) and we’ve been talking a lot of (expletive) leading up to the fight and in (a day) it’s time to get in there and see who’s the better man."

Holding on to his career by fighting around the world, Grove sees Halsey, who has only fought eight times and never outside of the United States, as a guy who hasn’t earned the right to mouth off the way he has.

"I’ve been doing this way too long to be listening to this guy thinking he’s God’s gift (to MMA) with eight fights thinking he’s going to smash me," Grove said. "He’s the champ but he has holes in his game that I see so we’ll find out who the better man is."

Grove first met Halsey years ago while training with former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz in California.

Halsey didn’t turn pro until 2012 and has four first-round stoppages in his eight wins.

He’s coming off a 35-second submission victory over former champion Alexander Shlemenko last September.

"He’s strong and a good wrestler who gets good positions, but that’s about it," Grove said.

Grove spent 12 weeks away from his family of five children training for the fight in California before his wife arrived last Sunday.

She brought with her his good-luck charm — his oldest son.

"He was there when I fought Joe Riggs and submitted him in the first round and he was at my first Just Scrap show in Maui when I choked out a guy in the first," Grove said.

"Let’s go get number three."