Emmanuel Sanchez eyes loser of Patricio Freire and A.J. McKee with win at Bellator 263

LOS ANGELES – If all goes according to plan, Emmanuel Sanchez wants the grand prix runner-up next.

Sanchez (20-5 MMA, 12-4 BMMA) meets Mads Burnell (15-3 MMA, 2-0 BMMA) in Saturday’s Bellator 263 co-main event. On the same night, one of the biggest fights in the promotion’s history will serve as the headliner.

Although he was eliminated from the featherweight grand prix by champion Patricio Freire in the semifinals, the former two-time title challenger is looking to get right back in the mix of things by facing whoever doesn’t prevail in the main event between Freire and A.J. McKee.

“I’m looking for the winner of that, or whoever doesn’t come out victorious on Saturday night,” Sanchez told MMA Junkie at the pre-fight press conference. “This is what I want: Clean out this division and prove that I’m the best. I have (Freire) to thank, that he only made a much more dangerous fighter.

“I want whoever doesn’t come out victorious out of this one. That’s who I’d like to face after I go out and defeat Mads Burnell.”

But Sanchez will have to get through one of Europe’s hottest prospects in Burnell, who’s been on a tear ever since departing from the UFC. The Danish fighter is a dangerous finisher who has stopped five of his past six opponents, and Sanchez says that’s exactly what he’ll have to do if he wants to get his hand raised.

“That’s how it is – you’re going to have to kill me,” Sanchez said. “What happened in my last time around happened. But if I would have gotten back up and said, ‘All right, let’s go again – let’s go again’ … but that’s not the way it works. But that’s the type of fighter I am. As ‘Big’ John McCarthy said, I’m the Terminator, I’m Rambo, Liu Kang, Ryu – and I will not stop until they’re done and they don’t get back up.

“He brings a little bit of everything. I like this fight a lot, and I look at the landscape of the division and all the other fighters that are in there. It’s a pool of killers, and that’s good. That’s what excites me. Outside of the champion and the challenger that we have on Saturday night, we have other great fighters like Mads Burnell, as the aforementioned Adam Borics and Jay Jay Wilson, Aaron Pico, and the list goes on. But I want to make a statement. If this fight doesn’t go as exciting as everyone planned, then I’m going to steal the show and leave it all on the line.”