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Gerald Harris knows that his Bellator run, which began with a last-minute call against a top 185-pound contender, hasn’t been great.

But, with one fight remaining on his current contract with the promotion, Harris (25-7-1 MMA, 0-2-1 BMMA) is optimistic that things are about to take a turn for the better.

“I really have a good feeling about this next fight,” Harris told MMAjunkie Radio. “Everything’s coming together. I hired a new coach, I’m training six days a week. I used to actually train about four. Three with my coach, and three on my own. I have two coaches now, so I feel like a whole new fighter.”

Said “next fight,” it turns out, hasn’t been booked yet. But Harris has a date in mind for it: March 22, when Bellator heads back to WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Okla.

So far, the only bout announced for the card is the headliner, between recent 145-pound title challenger Emmanuel Sanchez and Ashleigh Grimshaw. But Harris is hoping to get a word in with the Bellator brass after the holidays and present his case.

“I’m really itching to get on (the card),” Harris said. “And also, a lot of people don’t know, I’m a teacher now. I started teaching again, and it’s spring break, so all the teachers want to come and the students want to go. My wrestling team wants to go.”

“Hurricane” Harris is an MMA veteran with stints through several well-known promotions, such as the UFC and the now-defunct WSOF (which has been re-branded as PFL) and Legacy FC (which merged with RFA to form LFA). His Bellator debut, however, didn’t happen until recently, at Bellator 198 back in April.

Harris, who was then retired from MMA, was sitting on his couch with a doughnut, trying to figure out how to watch the card, when he got the call to step in for the injured John Salter. Making his debut on only a few days’ notice against undefeated jiu-jitsu wizard Rafael Lovato Jr. was a gusty move, but guts weren’t enough to earn him the win. Harris suffered a quick submission loss.

While “Hurricane” got a multi-fight deal out of it, life in the cage didn’t get much easier for him. He’d go on to make the drop back to welterweight, “which was a horrible idea,” against an unbeaten fighter who also happened to be 14 years his junior. After Yaroslav Amosov “just dominated me the whole fight,” Harris would go on to get a draw against Hracho Darpinyan.

“You know, I appreciate them keeping me around,” Harris said. “Two losses and a draw, they could have let me go. I could be done, back on the local circuit or retired again. I never felt like I was going to lose my job. I got a four-fight deal, and I’m on the fourth fight and, hey, hopefully this one can be impressive and I can move on and do more.”

Regardless of what comes next in Harris’ career, there are already some pretty nice things that he can say about what’s happened in it already. Other than a stint on “The Ultimate Fighter,” a trio of UFC wins and a highly victorious career in which he traveled through multiple weight divisions, he also has at least one seriously cool fan story.

Looking through Twitter once, Harris found out he had a fan whose dad, who’d died of cancer, was also a big fan. Harris promise he’d meet him and one day, when his son was competing in a wrestling tournament near where the fan lived, Harris arranged a meet-up.

The fan got a package with a signed Bellator glove from Harris’ promotional debut, a poster and a card. But it was Harris who arguably got the best gift out of the interaction.

“He comes in and he’s just full of emotion,” Harris said. “And I’m like, I’ve never been through this before. I’ve never had the Jon Jones or the Daniel Cormier effect on people. And he teared up, and he was just like, ‘Man, I’m sorry.’ I said, ‘Don’t apologize.’ He’s like, one of the reasons why I fight. Like, seriously. For people to appreciate me that much? For him to feel like it was an honor to meet me?

“It’s never an ego thing. It really makes me want to fight as long as I can. I feel physically fine, I have some injuries, but to inspire someone? And he wants to be a fighter, too, one day. But for him to tell me that, like, I’m one of the reasons why he trains? And his dad died of cancer and I was his favorite fighter? That was a big deal.”

For more on “Bellator: Sanchez vs. Grimshaw,” check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.