FiveKnuckles.com: It looked like you took some nice shots in your fight against Wilson Reis in your semi-final victory in the Bellator tournament. How's the chin?

Joe Soto: I don't know. When I'm at practice we'll be boxing or whatever, I feel like I can take a lot of punches and I do take a lot of punches (laughs). I've been hit so many times and I've never been knocked out in practice. I've been hit hard. When I fought Wilson [Reis] I got dazed and thought I was almost going out there. My chin is pretty good. I think Wilson just hit me right on the spot. If anybody gets hit in that spot, you're going to go down or same if you don't see the punch coming. I wouldn't know though and don't want to know. That means you lost.

FiveKnuckles.com: Fighting in a tournament can surely be taxing. Anything interesting happen throughout the course of the tournament?

Joe Soto: I got cut three days before the Bellator finals fight with Yahir Reyes. I was wrestling, it was dumb and one of my teammates warned me not to. I wanted to get my blood pumping and my team said not to saying I was going to get cut. I've wrestled all my life and never been cut. They were like 'alright alright, get your five minutes and go'. I started wrestling with one of my friends and took his back... I was right in back of him about to take him down and he tried to reach back and elbowed me right on my eyelid. It split the whole eyelid right across. We went to the emergency room and got it super glued and told them I can't get stitches. So we did that, got it super glued. Everybody could notice it. Finally the swelling went down a little bit but I still had this huge gash that was super glued shut. You get checked by the doctors before the weigh-ins and I was worried I wouldn't get cleared. So before the weigh-ins we went to this make-up and hair place and asked them if they could cover it up with make-up. They sent us to Macy's to pick up this certain kind of make-up. Sure enough we came back with the make-up and they covered my cut up. I ended up getting cleared to fight and it worked. My manager is telling me before the fight, "You know it's going to open up. If the guy sneezes on you, it's going to open up." It did open up but it didn't bleed at all. I eventually had to get stitches. I think I had like 7 or 8 stitches across my eyelid. I still got the scar right in the fold of my eye. It was crazy. The day before weigh-ins I was walking around with sun glasses and a hat. When the doctor was checking me, a bunch of my teammates came over and started talking to the doctor. You know, anything to distract him or steer his attention.

About 15-minutes before the fight, I'm warming up on the bag and asked my boxing coach where my mouth piece was at. He can't find it. We look everywhere for my mouth piece and luckily one of my friends brought his cheap Wal-Mart piece. I still don't know why he brought it, but it's all we had. The Commission had us try to remold it so it'd fit. We quickly got some hot water and tried to...