In an untold and heart wrenching story heading into this weekend’s Bellator 192 event, is about a father and son who will meet for the first time ever.
And as if preparing for a major fight card wasn’t nerve-wracking enough, Bellator welterweight Ian Butler is also meeting his father for the first time in his life.
Fansided.com tells the story:
While most fighters are finishing the last few hours of weight-cutting and getting into the fighting mindset, Ian Butler will be preparing to meet his biological father for the first time. Butler will be making his Bellator welterweight debut against undefeated Joey Davis on Saturday, and even though he’s about to experience a huge personal milestone, he isn’t going to let that derail him from the task at hand — securing a victory.
Butler was born in St. Louis, where he lived with his mother until moving to San Diego for what they’d hoped would be a better life. Unfortunately, the pair ended up sleeping on the streets and hopping from shelter to shelter just to stay warm and find something to eat. This was where Butler would meet Katie Andrews, who would eventually adopt Butler after his mother was unable to raise him on her own. Andrews, unfortunately, passed away but not before instilling in Butler a desire to compete in martial arts.
“I was always surrounded by strong women,” he said. “I, of course, thought about my dad but I was happy with who I had in my life so I never really asked about him.”
In fact, Butler never even knew his father’s name until late last year when he was filling out his marriage license application.
“I had to call my mom to ask what his name was,” Butler said. “I needed it for the form so I could get married, I can’t remember ever hearing his name before that.”
As fate would have it just weeks before he was set to walk down the aisle a sibling he never knew existed reached out to him on Instagram.
“I got a DM from a girl who said she was my sister,” Butler said. “I was skeptical, but after we exchanged some information, and I called my mom, I realized she was telling the truth.”
He learned that his father was living in Las Vegas, NV and had three other children — and wanted to meet him. They arranged a phone call and Butler heard his father’s voice for the very first time.
“We talked on the phone, it was surreal. That was my dad,” Butler said. “He talked just like me.”
After speaking a few times with his new siblings and father he realized that they had been following his career for some time and but were nervous about reaching out earlier.
Butler decided he wanted to meet them and invited them to come watch him fight in Los Angeles.
“Of course I’m going to be nervous,” he said. “But it’s not going to affect how I fight, I’m there to do a job and that’s to finish Joey. It doesn’t matter who is in the audience, I will get it done.”
