Superior Cage Combat's Dave Terrel focused on Phil Dace, still wants Kit Cope

Of the fights on the horizon for WEC vet Dave Terrel, the one that's not happening is the one with the most heat.

Terrel (6-4) fights Phil Dace (4-2) Saturday at Superior Cage Combat 1 in Las Vegas, and it's a clash between two of the biggest gyms in the city: Xtreme Couture and the TapouT training center.

But there's a fight lingering out there that Terrel, a former WEC fighter, has wanted for a long time. It's a fight with another local guy – one he really doesn't like.

But for some reason, the matchup seems to be out of his reach.

The local guy in question is WEC and UFC vet Kit Cope, who's been around for years on the Las Vegas scene, and who in the past, has gone after Terrel on camera. That prompted Terrel to call him out when the two ran into each other at a local nightclub.

"He acted like he wanted to fight me," Terrel told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). "I was like, 'Hey, let's go outside. Let's go across the street and handle this like men.' But he didn't want to do it."

So the two haggled on a future fight. Cope is a featherweight. Terrel is a welterweight. Offer and counter-offer led them to shake on a catchweight of 163 pounds. Great, Terrel thought.

"Then I talked to Ryan (Langmaid) from Superior Cage Combat, and he was like, 'I'm down,'" said Terrel, a fighter nickname "The Bionic" who went 2-1 under the WEC banner. "I guess every time him and Kit talk, Ryan brings it up to him. And every time he brings my name up to Kit, the text messages stop, and you don't hear from Kit for a week.

"I'm just taking it that this kid doesn't want to fight. It's not a good idea for him to fight me, anyway, because he's a featherweight and I'm a welterweight, and I'm just too big and strong. I would crush that kid."

Dace stepped up to fight, so Terrel took that option. What was he supposed to do? After all, it takes two to tango.

There is an ocean of footage out there on Cope, who's been the subject of a documentary for MTV called "True Life," which talks about his fights on the Muay Thai circuit. With Dace, there are clips here and there, as well as the usual pipeline of inter-gym chatter that informs fighters from the same town.

Basically, Terrel is just going out there to fight. He missed an opportunity to get back to the big show – an open invitation from UFC president Dana White was squandered when he lost a unanimous decision to Jorge Lopez in his most recent fight – and he's got to get some wins to get momentum once again.

Knocking out Dace would be a nice way to do that.

"From what I know, he trains out of TapouT, and he's one of Shawn Tompkins' fighters," Terrel said. "I'm going to go out there and put him to the test and see if he can hang standing."

It may not be the fight he originally wanted, but waiting is no solution.

"I'm in the best shape of my life now," Terrel said. "It's all about consistency in the gym. You go every day and you get better."