No injury? Just because of the TPF loss? If so, that's quite silly. Soto is the former tournament champ after all and I think Wilson Reis has gotten enough chances in Bellator tourneys. Besides, Reis has lost to Soto in the past and was KO'd in his last fight by Pitbull Freire.
Well he got choked out in 2 minutes.. and thats 2 losses in a row. I guess Rebney told Soto beforehand that he could take the fight, but if he lost.. he couldn't be in the tournament. So Soto at least knew the stakes.. it was kinda jumping in the deep end to be off with injury for a year and then challenge the TPF featherweight champion in your first fight back. Tachi isn't a huge promotion, but they have some good fighters.. espescially in the lower weight classes.
I imagine they just threw Reis in because he's a good replacement.. I mean, he's 12-3.. 5-3 in Bellator.. only losses to Pitbull (2x) and Soto.. he won't have to fight either of those guys in this tournament.. it makes sense when you look at it like that.. and to be fair, I'd love to see Reis/Warren.
Last edited by Dubya; August 30th, 2011 at 11:53 AM.
In an ironic twist.. the guy that beat Joe Soto in 2 minutes @ Tachi Palace Fights 10, Eddie Yagin, has signed with the UFC and will make his debut @ UFC 135.
Heavyweight tournament was announced for Bellator 52.. that's 4 tournaments this season so far. Lovely.
Bellator 49 - Sep.10
-Welterweights
Ben Saunders vs. Chris Cisneros
Dan Hornbuckle vs. Luis Santos
Steve Carl vs. Douglas Lima
Chris Lazano vs. Brent Weedman
Bellator 50 - Sep.17
-Middleweights
Bryan Baker vs. Jared Hess
Alexander Shlemenko vs. Zelg Galesic
Brian Rogers vs. Victor O'Donnell
Vitor Vianna vs. Sam Alvey
Bellator 51 - Sep.24
-Bantamweights
Joe Warren vs. Alexis Villa
Ed West vs. Luis Nogueira
Wilson Reis vs. Eduardo Dantas
Chase Beebe vs. Marcos Galvao[/QUOTE]
Bellator 52 - Oct.01
-Heavyweights
Mark Holata vs. Ron Sparks
Neil Grove vs. Mike Hayes
Blagoi Ivanov vs. Thiago Santos
Eric Prindle vs. Abe Wagner
Bellator has signed world kickboxing champ, Cosmo Alexander (40-14 in kickboxing, 2-1 in pro boxing, 0-0 in mma)
Now please excuse me while I go grease up my abs..
MMAJunkie is reporting that Bellator is now dipping it's toes into the Spike TV waters.
Bellator prelims starting with Bellator 49 are now going to be streamed at Spike.com. Apparently there may be dates until the end of the year where UFC prelims will be showing on Spike TV while Bellator prelims will be streaming on the site. Good news IMO.
That's pretty cool. I hope they end up there. It would really be good for everyone.. the company. The fighters. Other fighters.. and us, the fans.
Video preview of Bellator season 5 has been posted on Spike.com
http://www.spike.com/full-episodes/e...eason-5-ep-501
They're soooooo moving to Spike. I'm sooooooo happy.
TNA.. Spike... Bellator...
Yep.. I don't think its a coincidence that their season preview was on Spike.com .. their prelims will be on Spike.com for the rest of the year and now their fighters are popping up on Spike TV.. thats a pretty impressive string of coincidences if so.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/25140/sour...f-but-when.mma
Spike TV execs say that its not a matter of "if" but "when" Bellator moves to Spike..
apparently the main hold-up is the UFC Library. They have the rights to everything thats been on Spike until 2013.. and as long as they do own them and are showing them, they are not allowed to show other MMA broadcasts on the channel.
the source from Viacom says that if a decent offer is made by the UFC for the library (which I'd assume they'd want.. ?) then they would most likely sell.
So basically if not next year, then definitely 2013 will see Bellator on Spike.. but hopefully they can reach a deal and make it next year. 20 million more homes.. better promotion.. HD broadcast.. c'mon.. thats a no-brainer.
A quiet threat is kinda made too.. saying that they don't think Fox understands what having that library means.. they can counter-program any and all live UFC events with BIG taped fights.. they can counter new TUF with old TUF.. they did that when Marquardt was supposed to fight Story on Versus and actually scored more ratings with a Marquardt Unleashed episode than the live event on Versus did.. plus it confuses the marketplace when your product is spread all over the place.. espescially when you're supposed to have a new home.
So it puts the UFC in an interesting spot.. do they buy the video library and allow Bellator to take over their old home.. or allow them to counter UFC programming with UFC programming..
Last edited by Dubya; September 8th, 2011 at 10:39 AM.
I'll say this though, who in their right mind believes Spike would outdue Fox in ratings if Spike showed an old UFC event that aired on Spike versus live MMA......Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there could be a time where someone isn't too high on what Fox is doing and they flip it to Spike, but I don't know too many fans who would do that unless it's an event they haven't seen or they knew what fights were getting shown on that particular Unleashed.
Keep in mind, Fox isn't Versus, and Spike isn't Fox.
I say they buy the library and let Bellator go to Spike. If I was the UFC/Zuffa, I wouldn't be worried one bit about Bellator and Spike, especially when the biggest names Bellator has is Eddie Alvarez and Ben Saunders.
Last edited by UncannyIowan; September 9th, 2011 at 2:57 PM.
I don't think they'd do much to the FOX broadcasts either (unless they had a fucking ACE card), but if they were to counter-program the UFC shows on FX, that could be a severe blow to the UFC ratings. FX will have some Fight Nights and the TUF series.. Spike could counter-program both with bigger taped live events and pull in more ratings.. again.. they did it with a freaking Nate Marquardt episode of Unleashed and it scored better ratings than the live Barry/Kongo event and that was a pretty sweet card really. Versus isn't FOX no doubt, but neither is FX..
Last edited by Dubya; September 9th, 2011 at 5:32 PM.
Bellator 49 prelims are on Spike.com in about 30 minutes..
FW: Brylan Van Artsdalen vs. Joel Roberts
WW: Giedrius Karavackas vs. LeVon Maynard
FW: Alexandre Bezerra vs. Scott Heckman
FW: James Jones vs. Lester Caslow
HW: Azunna Anyanwu vs. J.A. Dudley
Bellator 59 in November will feature Kurt Pellegrino vs. Patricky Pitbull Freire and Phillipe Nover vs. Marcin Held
Pellegrino/Pitbull should be a good one.
I guess it all depends on what airs on FX versus what airs on Spike. I don't know the whole story about the Unleashed with Marquardt, did they air it at the same exact time the 2-3 hour Versus event went on or was it aired earlier in the day and maybe something more important was on that Sunday night like a new Family Guy or some shit lol. To be honest that Kongo/Barry card sucked on paper (and kind of on t.v. as well), so I wouldn't doubt people found something better to watch.Originally Posted by dubya
The UFC, if they were smart which they are, should just buy up the library anyway unless it's some insane price that isn't beneficial to them.
How did it suck on TV? It only had one of the most memorable heavyweight KO's in company history.. I mean, you can't even begin to call either heavyweight fight on the card boring.. Brown/Howard was a good scrap too. Story/Brenneman is the only fight on the card you could call boring and I didn't even think it was boring cuz I was so shocked that Story was getting dominated like he was.
Either way, though.. whether Spike would win the ratings war with FX doesn't matter.. the point is that they'd take some viewers away, and most likely a sizeable chunk. FX doesn't want that and neither does the UFC.
Last edited by Dubya; September 12th, 2011 at 12:14 PM.
Bellator pulled 235,000 viewers for Bellator 49 according to MMAJunkie and 386,000 according to MMAWeekly.. I'm thinking it peaked at 386,000 and averaged 235,000. Very respectable numbers going against a significantly bigger show.
Last edited by Dubya; September 13th, 2011 at 3:31 PM.
I said kind of....Trust me man I was turning it during most of the show and I love the shit out of live fights, but a couple of those fights were just kinda....blah. I wasn't impressed that much, and I could see people with half the interest that I do turning it.
I don't think anyone is arguing that there is a possibility Spike could take viewers away if what is airing live or on FX in general isn't appealing. No different than when the UFC and Strikeforce or Elite XC would run shows against each other, it just means more options
Did you see Eddie Alvarez on TNA last Thursday? Thought it was cool they hyped the hell out of the show and promotion.
Nah I haven't watched any wrestling in the last few months, sans a couple CM Punk things here and there.. I did read about him making an appearance though.
Hopefully most of the 12 TNA viewers will tune in to the next event.
If you didn't catch Bellator 49 over the weekend..
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9g-t4DD_qc&feature=relmfu"]Fight News: Bellator 49 Recap - YouTube[/ame]
Apparently Bellator is trying to set up a bout between Hector Lombard and Renato 'babalu' Sobral. I guess Babalu wanted the fight, asked for it to be at 205.. Lombard accepted, even though he's a small middleweight that could and has considered making 170.. and now they're just waiting on Babalu.. apparently they agreed to all his terms to make it happen, but haven't heard back from his camp in a few days.. even though Babalu's camp is the one that asked for the fight.. I guess we'll see?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwW8fAqVsS8"]Bellator 50 Highlights - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM2949FwJIQ"]Bellator 50 Post Fight Press Conference - YouTube[/ame]
Bantamweight Tournament starts this weekend.. sucks for them that one of their best opening rounds will be totally overlooked because of UFC 135, but oh well. Should be a great card though. Prelims on Spike.com too.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF0bZuuP6jk"]Bellator 51 Highlights - YouTube[/ame]
Joe Warren got KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT
yeah I've always said if you haven't been stopped in the past the first time is eventually going to catch up to you and usually it's brutal.
Jesus there were like 30 flying knees lol.
Last edited by UncannyIowan; September 27th, 2011 at 1:45 PM.
Bellator FC has released Dan Hornbuckle and Wilson Reis.
Also..
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FwTnNUSVi0"]Bellator 52 Highlights - YouTube[/ame]
Bellator 52 pulled in 269,000 viewers.. 2nd most in company history.
Also ..
Hector Lombard vs. Trevor Prangley @ Bellator 58
Hm, that's a rematch right?
/Scratch that, I was thinking of Kyle Noke. For some reason I always confuse Noke and Prangley, no idea why.
Last edited by OD50; October 4th, 2011 at 1:30 PM.
I wish Jardine wasn't with Strikeforce right now .. would love to see Lombard/Jardine now that Jardine has dropped to 185.
I'd like to see Lombard fight someone good. Is that too much to ask? Although, you have to give Jardine props for going to a lame draw with Gegard. I think Gegard won that, but it just amazes me how one minute Jardine's chin is made of a plastic bag filled with water and the next he's going the distance with Liddell and Gegard.
The fight people should be wanting is Lombard v. Marquardt. 2 fighters I'm sick of hearing about how good they are is Hector Lombard and Eddie Alvarez. At least with Alvarez though he's fought top fighters just not in the UFC.
Bellator 58 - November 19th
Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler (for Bellator Lightweight Title)
Hector Lombard vs. Trevor Prangley (non-title, 195-pound catchweight)
If you need your MMA fix tonight.. Bellator middleweight semifinals are tonight.. couple good fights with Brian Rogers vs. Alexander Shlemenko and Bryan Baker vs. Vitor Vianna. Zack Makovsky in a non-title fight as well.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i9F6AP4AdA"]BELLATOR 54 - Video Promo - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwjE_X3BFxI"]MMA: Bellator 54 - YouTube[/ame]
Pretty good night of fights. Vienna blasting Baker right at the start was nuts. I'd recommend the Shlemenko/Rogers fight. It was quite entertaining.
Bellator has signed Maiquel Falcao
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtOwLSpycJc"]Bellator 54 Super Highlights - YouTube[/ame]
Bjork, the guy who runs Bellator, apparently said the only fighter who could beat Lombard is Anderson Silva. Thoughts?
Yeah, that about sums it up.
I'm pretty sure that we could think up about a dozen-ish guys that he would have trouble with and/or not beat.
We could make a poll of 10 and see who people think he could beat.
Last edited by Dubya; October 17th, 2011 at 3:41 PM.
Keith Jardine.
Efrain Escudero will make his Bellator debut against Cesar Avila this Saturday on the preliminary card of Bellator 55... should be a good night of fights. ..
MAIN CARD (MTV2)
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com)
- Marcos Galvao vs. Alexis Vila (bantamweight tourney semifinal)
- Eduardo Dantas vs. Ed West (bantamweight tourney semifinal)
- Champ Christian M'Pumbu vs. Travis Wiuff (non-title light-heavyweight fight)
- Ricardo Tirloni vs. Steve Gable
- Cesar Avila vs. Efrain Escudero
- Carlos Flores vs. Richard Hale
- Edgar Garcia vs. Jacob Ortiz
- Erin Beach vs. Roscoe Jackson
- Nick Piedmont vs. Jade Porter
- Dano Moore vs. Steve Steinbeiss
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHvgMbiP39I"]BELLATOR 55 - Bantamweight Semi-Finals - YouTube[/ame]
here's a stream for those of us that don't have MTV2 ..
Christian M'Pumbu really needs to cut to 185. He weighed in at 201 .. he's losing to a guy that's deinitely not better than him, but clearly much bigger than him. They said he doesn't cut any weight at all, so I don't think the drop to 185 would kill him and he'd definitely be able to make an impact there. These guys that are so much bigger and stronger is just a problem he's going to keep running into at 205. They said Travis Wiuff cut like 60 pounds to get to 205 .. against M'Pumbu, who weighs in at 201. He should definitely drop to 185.
Yeah, fighting at LHW weighing 201 pounds and having zero wrestling background isn't that promising if he want's to keep fighting in the US. Like Smith said, there are WW's walking around way heavier than M'Pumbu.
Agreed. He seems like a pretty talented fighter, to be fair. He has really good striking and good subs, but Wiuff was just way too big for him. He was never really hurting M'Pumbu, in fact.. overall damage would have to go to M'Pumbu when he almost got the KO in the 3rd, but.. Wiuff clearly won on points. I had it 29-28 for Wiuff. I think M'Pumbu could give Lombard a nice run at 185. Of course, Falcao is in Bellator now, so Lombard might have someone to test him anyway.
Viacom has purchased Bellator. They will continue airing on MTV2 with prelims on Spike.com and promotion on Spike through 2012 and will fully switch to Spike in 2013. Even though there is obviously a nice wait there.. this is good. Viacom will likely give them more funding to get more quality fighters in there.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/mma/p...1?csp=34sports
Last edited by Dubya; October 26th, 2011 at 1:29 PM.
The Askren/Hieron fight was really good .. you should check it out on mma-core.com or download cuz it was worth a view.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LGs1O9PUFg"]Super Highlights Bellator 56 - YouTube[/ame]
I didn't bother because I was expecting Askren to grapple fuck Hieron non-stop for 25 minutes.
Might check it out.
Bellator has signed former UFC welterweight, Brian Foster.
The one major positive about the UFC is that they are building names left and right. 4-5 fights in the UFC=a decent draw for a smaller promotion. Even one fight will get people going "Holy shit let's see this guy again" With the new weight classes in the UFC, Bellator and other promotions are going to start benefiting significantly if they really wanted to. Pride, Strikeforce, Affliction, etc. all benefited greatly from the former UFC guys and current UFC going elsewhere
Apparently Bellator is working on an event for Feburary that would feature a featherweight title fight between Joe Warren and Pat Curran as well as a special feature fight between Eddie Alvarez and Shinya Aoki. Very nice.
Good job by Lima, Saunders had only been stopped once in his career previous (vs. Swick). Glad Shlemenko will get the rematch against Lombard.
Really excited for Alvarez/Chandler. Chandler better not fuck up Alvarez/Aoki II though..
Decent article up on Sherdog with excerpts from an interview with Lombard where he basically does nothing but say he doesn't understand why he gets flack when he doesn't even do steroids........No Lombard, we just want to see if you can live up to what little hype you have. I had no clue he was going to fight Karo Paryisan in the UFC, Lombard @ 170? Wild.
I was sad Saunders lost, just a really really talented guy who shouldn't have even been released considering the top talent he was fighting.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PlAxCzw6wg"]Fight News: Bellator 58 Preview - YouTube[/ame]
I'm actually really excited for Alvarez/Chandler. Michael Chandler should be way too green to beat Alvarez, but he's one of those kids like Rory Mac that is just seriously a lot better than they have any business being at this point in their careers. I hope Eddie isn't overlooking him because I wouldn't be shocked to see an upset happen. Chandler has some really good wrestling and I know Alvarez does too, but I think Chandler might actually have the edge there. Really looking forward to the fight though.
Lombard/Prangley is a pretty good fight, I suppose.. Prangley is a journeyman, but he's been in there with a lot of good fighters and beaten some of them too. Its just pathetic to me that this would be Lombard's biggest win if he wins.. I still want to see Bellator's 205 lb champion, Christian M'Pumbu drop to 185 (where he belongs) and fight Lombard.. I think he could win and if not, he'd give Lombard some serious fits.
Marlon Sandro is fighting on this card too.. if you haven't seen this guy yet, do yourself a favor and watch him.. he's pretty damn good. Curran was able to get the best of him, but I think Curran is really good so I'm not surprised by that. I fully believe that Curran could come to the UFC and be competitive at 145. He's very, very good and very well-rounded.. also has some serious KO power for a featherweight. Winning their tournament at 155 and then again at 145 is pretty impressive to me because those are really their more talent-heavy divisions.
Last edited by Dubya; November 19th, 2011 at 12:48 PM.
Oof. Absolutely brutal illegal soccer kick to the head ends a prelims bout between Herbert Goodman and Jonas Billstein (Billstein ended up losing via DQ).
Michael Chandler just submitted Eddie Alvarez in the fourth round in a supposedly incredible fight. Damn Bellator have some beasts, if Alexis Villa can win the bantamweight title they have 4 undefeated champions and another on a ridiculous streak.
Yeah, seriously.. watch this fight. It was fucking awesome. Two FOTYs in one night!
Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler @ Bellator 58 for the Bellator Lightweight Title
http://www.mma-core.com/videos/_Full...024596&tid=101
Great fight.
Gutted for Eddie though, was really hoping for Alvarez/Aoki II.
Pretty cool that Michael Chandler, Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley wrestled together at the University of Missouri and now have identical MMA records (9-0). Talent.
Lombard didn't have much trouble with Prangley at 195.
Still haven't watched the Sandro fight.
Yeah, that was rough. German kid is just 20, need to get his hormones in check. He looked really good up until the field goal though. Shame, he was clearly winning the fight anyway.
And man, I think I discovered the missing link between Cro-Magnon and homo sapien while watching the prelims, need to inform National Geographic..
Which fighter was that?
I unfortunately did not see all of the prelims and switched over once UFC on facebook started up. Chandler/Alvarez was amazing, though. This is the first Eddie fight I've watched in full, and the way he kept getting rocked and coming back (even the way he physically looks) reminded me of Frankie Edgar.
That Brazilian dude, Valdir Araujo.
Main Card
Heavyweight Tournament Finals
Eric Prindle vs. Thiago Santos
Bantamweight Tournament Finals
Eduardo Dantas vs. Alexis Vila
Patricky Freire vs. Kurt Pellegrino
Marcin Held vs. Phillipe Nover
Preliminary Card
Karl Amoussou vs. Jesus Martinez
LeVon Maynard vs. Chris Wing
Lucas Pimenta vs. Doug Gordon
Scott Heckman vs. Brylan Van Artsdalen
Gregory Milliard vs. Brandon Saling
Oh and here's the recap of 58, which was a great show..
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8vvY4cXA4"]Fight News: Bellator 58 Recap - YouTube[/ame]
Chandler is pretty beastly me thinks, he took a wicked beating from Eddie in round three but came out like nothing had happened for round four.
Looking forward to Freire/Pellegrino and Vila/Dantas here. Must be almost a 20-year age difference between those two guys. No interest whatsoever in the HW finale.
Yeah, both of those heavyweights would get mauled in the UFC by just about the entire roster.. and will both get mauled by Cole Konrad.
Villa/Dantas should be real good. Vila is really strong for a bantamweight.. as obvious from the Warren fight.
Pellegrino/Pitbull should be pretty good too for sure.
Prindle should do pro-wrestling instead, for some reason I always think of the Warlord when I see him.
The Bellator HW tournies always seem to consist of mostly fat, tattooed bums swinging for the fences. But I understand the problem, there really isn't many quality HW's outside of Zuffa these days.
Prindle looks like a cross between Tim Boetsch and James Hetfield of Metallica. Lol.
Yes, Hetfield crossed my mind too.
Jon Koppenhaver is out of the Bellator WW tourney due to... Going back to jail.
Eddie Alvarez/Shinya Aoki seems to finally be on for April 20. Guessing that means Bellator 65/66'ish
Bjork the owner of Bellator was on MMA Uncensored last night. Really good segment with Bjork talking about why they'll probably never stray away from the tourny format, took a pot shot at Joe Silva/Dana White in terms of the matchmaking saying that's just someone in a suit deciding fights as opposed to the fighters themselves.
I'm pulling for Saunders in the tourny tonight, but they made a good point about him not being able to use elbows and how that somewhat alters his game. He got smashed in his last fight, so I'm hoping he comes back strong. I really really wish he was still in the UFC, think it's bullshit he's not but that's not my decision.
Yeah, in fairness to him.. the only reason he got cut was because he jumped into the deep end before learning how to swim well.. and he drowned.
So it looks like its been quiet in this thread for a bit.. here's some highlights of the last few shows..
Bellator 67
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2tyBbwLD2U
Bellator 66
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52FgIcQcxQE
Bellator 65
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9ZM8B8wh6c
Last edited by Dubya; May 8th, 2012 at 3:51 PM.
Bellator and TNA are holding a joint presser today to announce the signing of Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal.
Say what you want, but that's a good signing for them because their 205 "division" is pathetic. Sucks his suspension probably won't be over in time for their next LHW tourney.
Kinda surprised though because it seemed like he was probably on his way back to the UFC. Most likely likes the idea because he can wrestle with TNA on the side and make more money. He needs a lot of money because he has some serious medical bills to pay and only fighting 2-3 times a year in the UFC probably doesn't pay what a Spike/Viacom-backed Bellator and TNA can.
Last edited by Dubya; May 10th, 2012 at 11:47 AM.
Let's just hope this turns out better than when TNA brought in Bobby Lashley, who just fucking lost to James Thompson of all people by decision no less. King Mo in pro wrestling will satisfy my need to see Rampage in pro wrestling
I didn't even know Bellator had a LHW division.
Their LHW champ (Christian M'Pumbu) was the first (and only) to lose one of his non-title feature fights.. but that was bound to happen. Its a stupid idea to begin with.. even more stupid is the guy that beat him (Travis Wiuff) has to win a tournament for a title shot. I don't care what Bjorn says.. that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. When someone beats the champ.. they don't need to win 3 (actually 4 cuz he's fought on a bellator card since then too) more fights to deserve a fight with the champ.. thats not rocket science.. thats common sense. Not to mention, its bad for business. You've got a fight that people want to see and you're not giving it to them. I feel the same about Alvarez.. the guy had the belt since the promotion began.. he should be awarded an instant rematch.. it would definitely get more viewers than Chandler's waste of time fight with Gono.
In fairness to M'Pumbu.. he never had a chance against Wiuff. M'Pumbu should be fighting at 185. He's a tiny LHW. Wiuff has fought at heavyweight for the majority of his long career.. dropping to 205, he was visibily bigger and stronger than M'Pumbu and just dominated him in the clinch/ground game the whole time.
The rigid tournament format will only cost them their stars in the long run. Lombard and Alvarez are gone, Nate Marquardt didn't sign because of it.
I mean sure, the tourney is a great way for guys like Jeff Curran and Eduardo Dantas to make a name and earn a title shot, but if you have the opportunity to sign someone world-ranked like Marquardt why the hell not give him an instant title shot against Lombard? A fight that could shoot 'their champ' Lombard up the rankings and give them some great interest from fans. What if they in some bizarre way had the opportunity to sign GSP. Would Bjorn tell him he have to fight Waachiim Spiritwolf, Jaime Jara and Chris Lozano before getting a shot at Askren?
The format was fun at the start but the cracks are showing more and more.
I think its good for establishing contenders.. keeps fresh challengers. I don't like seeing the same guys in the tournament though. I think if you win or get to the finals, you shouldn't be 3 fights from a title shot.. I THINK on the card where the finals of each tourney are, have the 2 other semifinalists fight too.. and the loser of the finals can fight the winner of that fight on the same card as the title fight.. and boom you have another title fight instead of a stupid feature fight in between tourneys.
How many times can Spiritwolf and Zaromskis fight and not have a real winner?? Spiritwolf had to be crushed to go out and dominate that second round, only to lose the fight in between rounds because of his cut.. that Zaromskis hadn't touched in the last few minutes.
Strauss was impressive against Sandro. Did a lot better in the stand-up than I expected. Really picked his shots well and dominated on the ground. Should be an interesting fight for Curran and I look forward to it.
Good article about Shannon Slack.. he's one of Dominick Cruz's trainers on TUF. He's his wrestling coach. He's trained all over, helping guys with their wrestling and learning from them in exchange. Cruz, Davis, Penn, even guys at Black House.. he makes his Bellator debut tonight on the undercard. I think it's like his 3rd or 4th fight overall. Bit of a prospect.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/28744/figh...nry-cejudo.mma
Tonight's card ..
Maiquel Falcao vs. Andreas Spang (middleweight tourney final) <--- this should be an excellent fight. Spang is a bad man.
David Rickels vs. Karl Amoussou (welterweight tourney semifinal) <-- should be entertaining. Amoussou is a beast, but Rickels isn't too bad.
Ron Sparks vs. Kevin Asplund (hw fight)
Megumi Fujii vs. Jessica Aguilar
MMAJunkie will be showing 3 of the prelim fights at 6pm too ..
http://mmajunkie.com/news/28780/watc...t-7-p-m-et.mma
Shannon Slack (cruz' training partner) vs. Booker Arthur
Abe Wagner (tuf hw guy) vs. Mark Holata
Derrick Krantz vs. Andrey Koreshkov
I just talked to King Mo in the Bellator chat on Spike.com .. he talked TO ME. We all got him talking shit on Rampage and someone said Rampage would kill him. I'm all, "are you serious? Did you see the Bader fight? Mo a better wrestler than Bader and that's all you need vs. Rampage" and he replied "See.. Tim knows whats up. I beat Bader in a wrestling match in college. He never even got a takedown on me." "I'd keep Rampage on his back from the minute I put him there until the moment I left him unconcious there"
Tonight's Bellator 70 card ..
MAIN CARD (MTV2)
- Champ Cole Konrad vs. Eric Prindle (heavyweight title)
- Rick Hawn vs. Brent Weedman (lightweight-tourney finale)
- Hiroshi Nakamura vs. Luis Nogueira (bantamweight-tourney semifinal)
- Derek Campos vs. Rich Clementi
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com)
- Keith Schneider vs. Josh Shockley
- A.J. Matthews vs. Charlie Rader
- Jonas Billstein vs. Mike Seal
- Kyle Bradley vs. John Harris
- Derek Arcement vs. Blake Dufour
- Jeremiah Riggs vs. Kelvin Tiller
Fun fact: Jeremiah Riggs=kid from last year's Tough Enough.
Charlie Rader was on TUF too .. Kyle Bradley is a UFC-vet as well.
Good show last night .. Rich Clementi picked up a win.. Rick Hawn won a good fight with Weedman to win the LW tourney. Cole Konrad made Eric Prindle tap to a kimura in 1 minute flat.
Did Riggs win?
TAPS AFF!
No.
.. neither did the other guy that was on TUF.
Brett Rogers has signed on. Most likely to sneak onto the HW tourney in someway or another.
Not the biggest follower of Bellator but from what I've seen the HWs like to stand and bang. Doubtful he'll do much with it.
That video I posted a couple posts back.. yeah, that's what would happen to Brett Rogers if he got a fight with Cole Konrad.
It's funny that Bellator are signing these lumbering sluggers like Rogers, Grove, Buentello and Prindle when their HW champion is one of the most decorated wrestlers in MMA. They will all get taken down smothered or submitted.
Honestly, I think they're just grabbing whoever they can get with name value. It'll be interesting to see who they go after towards the end of the year. I'm thinking Viacom is saving the $$$ for the Spike switch.
Yeah, not exactly an overload of great HW free-agents out there. I guess the only decent names are Sylvia, Monson, Rizzo and Arlovski, problem is that they are all about ten years removed from their primes. There's also that undefeated Russian HW, Guram something. Pretty sure he is tangled up in the dubious M-1 web ála Fedor though.
Don't think Kharitonov is availabe for any exclusive contracts either due to Golden Glory, not sure.
Just found out about another Russian HW prospect that could be something for Bellator. Vitaly Minakov; 4-time Sambo World champion who's 8-0 in MMA with 7 sub/KO finishes. He just knocked out Eddie Sanchez, which is quite a nice scalp for any up-and-comer. Tied up with M-1 just like Guram and Fedor so any UFC career could be problematic.
Who's Eddie Sanchez?
Lol?
Lol. I missed that somehow.
Bellator's 'Summer Series' kicks off next weekend with Bellator 71 .. the card will feature the first round of the light-heavyweight tournament, as well as a heavyweight bout between Brett Rogers and Kevin Asplund (15-1).
Main Card
Brett Rogers (11-4) vs. Kevin Asplund (15-1)
Light Heavyweight Tourney Quaterfinals
Travis Wiuff (66-14) vs. Chris Davis (10-3)
Zelg Galesic (11-6) vs. Attila Vegh (25-4-2)
Roy Boughton (8-2) vs. Emanuel Newton (17-6)
Beau Tribolet (7-1) vs. Richard Hale (19-4-1)
Prelims on Spike.com
(LHW) Dan Spohn (6-2) vs. Josh Stansbury (3-2)
(LW) E.J. Brooks (7-0) vs. Joey Holt (3-0)
(LHW) Tim Carpenter (8-1) vs. John Hawk (7-4)
(LW) Neil Johnson (6-4) vs. Brylan Vanartsdalen (7-3)
(185) Jason Butcher (3-0) vs. Duane Bastress (5-1)
The entire above card can be streamed at MMAjunkie.com
http://mmajunkie.com/news/29301/watc...t-6-p-m-et.mma
It's a pretty good card too. Brett Rogers' fight is at 1:40. Followed by the main card at 2:00 with the LHW tournament. Some pretty good fights if you're bored.
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