The fights kicked off with Felice Herrig getting her ass kicked in the first round by Heather Clark. However, she turned things around in the final two rounds to win a split decision. I have no clue why it wasn’t unanimous, but one of the judges must’ve been taking a nap through the fight. The most interesting part of the fight was seeing Clark try to backhand Herrig after the final buzzer had long before sounded. Apparently, she was less than pleased to have Herrig yell her victory chant directly in her face. It was more than a tad provoking, but still unprofessional to for Clark to act in such a manner. Even more surprising, is the fact that the intentional foul was swept under the rug seconds later. I guess female fighters get a handicap; oh well.
When it comes to the ground game, you either see a talented wrestler with outstanding takedowns, or proficient Jiu-Jitsu practitioner with brilliant submission. In the case of Joe Taimanglo, we saw both. On more than one occasion, Taimanglo picked up Ronnie Rogers right off his feet and slammed him to the canvas. It only took him thirty three seconds into the second round to land another slam, and lock up a choke. Not a rear naked choke like majority of submissions, but one of the rarest of chokes, the north-South choke. If there was an award for submission of the night award, he would definitely have been the winner.
Right now Ronnie Mann must be feeling foolish for saying he could beat Bellator bantamweight champion, Eduardo Dantas. Rodrigo Lima bested him in all three round, giving him a slot in the upcoming Bellator bantamweight tournament. Lima really wasted joking when he said that it was time for him to win or go home.
Luis Melo vs. Trey Houston gets my vote for best fight of the night. A very back a forth fight that saw both men almost get finished, that is until Houston actually was finished with a beautiful arm triangle choke. Striking, takedowns, and submission attempts; action packed from start to end.
David Rickels vs. Saad Awad was widely controversial. Awad was winning the fight for about over nine and a half minutes, but in the last twenty seconds of the second round, the two engaged in a furious brawling session in which the caveman dropped his opponent at the buzzer. Awad’s head was straight up when he hit the canvas, and therefore seemed pretty coherent. However the ref saw Awad rolling to his back as a sign of inability to get up, and then called the fight. Immediately Awad jumped to his feet to protest, but the decision was done and there was no overturning the ref’s decision. Obviously Awad was disappointed, but in the end, he and Rickels had nothing but respect towards one another.
After defeating Mikhail Zayats, Emanuel Newton now has an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Not only does he have the chance to avenge his loss to Attila Vegh, but also win the Bellator light heavyweight title in the process. Newton truly believes that he should’ve won the fight, but unfortunately for him the judges disagreed. Zayats certainly put up on hell of a fight, and really turned up the heat in the second round. But Newton outworked him in the first and third round, awarding him a unanimous decision.
This was an event that MMA Fix was fortunate enough to see live and take part in the post fight press conference. Like everyone else who went to the USF Sundome, we implore Bjorn Rebney to bring Bellator back to the Tampa Bay area.
– Ryan “Fight Freek” Poli
@FightFreek