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| Credit BAMMA/ Richard Blackburn |
With both Stapleton (14-4) and Petley scheduled to make their promotional debuts in an exciting lightweight clash, the Rochdale fighter still believes he is 'good enough' to beat his opponent if they meet down the line.
"I'm used to it, it's happened to me so many times in my career, I'm used to it now, I don't really care, I want the big fights at the end of the day if someone pulls out, what can you do?"
“That fight would have been an exciting fight for the fans," said Stapleton "Stylistically, I genuinely think I'd be too much for him in any area, that's not to put him down at all, I think I'm good enough to outdo him in any areas.
"It would have been a good fight and hopefully we can get it on next year."
The 31 year-old's new opponent, Fournier (8-5) fights out of Tours France, but Stapleton admitted to not knowing much about his challenger: "I've been told he's got a bit of a striking background, that's about it really," he added, "I'm not really too fussed, too bothered about looking up my opponents that much, my coach does all that and I trust what my coaches tell me.
"I've not even looked at his record, I'm concentrating on my game not his, I'm sure he's in the gym training elbows, if not it's his own fault, I can't comment on the way he's training or the way he's preparing for this fight, I've preprepared properly."
Stapleton currently fights at the highly regarded SBG Mainline gym in Manchester and championed the 'fantastic' team as one of the best at helping martial artists improve.
He said: "Fantastic gym, fantastic coaches, brilliant training partners, it just couldn't be going any better at this point for me.
"I believe in the system, and it's showing big time in my sparring, in my fights, the improvements are showing and they'll show again in this fight.
"It's all about the methodology, it's mixed martial arts, we're not doing just individual techniques randomly, the way Karl [Tanswell] puts it together, and the way John Kavanagh does it in Ireland, it's polished, proper training method."
The former Ultimate Fighter contestant and Bellator member also claimed that he has one big goal for the end of 2015: "I've signed with BAMMA because I want to be the top lightweight in the division that they've got there.
"I'd like next year to get a chance at the British title and look towards getting a world title shot by the end of the year."
Stapleton praised the BAMMA lightweight roster as one of the best in the world, and stated it is the only place he wants to be in terms of opposition.
"BAMMA pretty much have got it sealed up with being lightweights, all the good ones anyway, that's the competition that I want, anything outside that in the UK there isn't much competition at all if I'm honest I want the best guys in Europe to be against me on the other side of the cage.
"The UK lightweight division is as good as any lightweight division in the world, there's nearly 30 or 40 UK lightweights that are world class, I don't think you can really say that in any other division."
The second half of our in-depth interview will be released on Mirror MMA later this week, but if you can't wait you can catch the whole talk with Stapleton in the video below.
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