Bellator announces Alessio Sakara vs Brian Rogers for April 16 in Torino, Italy

Bellator MMA and Oktagon Kickboxing will be co-promoting a card on April 16th, 2016 at Pala Alpitour in Torino, Italy. One of the featured bouts that night has just been revealed: a light heavyweight match between UFC veteran Alessio Sakara …

Bellator MMA and Oktagon Kickboxing will be co-promoting a card on April 16th, 2016 at Pala Alpitour in Torino, Italy. One of the featured bouts that night has just been revealed: a light heavyweight match between UFC veteran Alessio Sakara and “Professional Predator” Brian Rogers.

The international debut of Bellator MMA will take place April 16th, 2016 at Pala Alpitour in Torino, Italy. The card that evening will be co-promoted by Oktagon Kickboxing, with the Bellator fights being aired on Spike TV.

Oktagon Kickboxing President Carlo Di Blasi held a press conference to announce several marquee fights for the card, and of interest to Bellator fans will be a light heavyweight showdown between Brian Rogers (12-8) and Alessio Sakara (17-11, 2 NC).

Sakara is a longtime UFC veteran who was released in 2013 following a loss to Nico Musoke. Since that time, Sakara moved up from middleweight, and after finding new success at 205 pounds, he was signed by Bellator MMA specifically to debut on this card in Italy.

Rogers is also a former middleweight who found renewed success at light heavyweight, defeating Virgil Zwicker via arm triangle choke at Bellator 147. He’ll look to win back-to-back fights in Italy for the first time since going from Strikeforce to Bellator in 2011.

Di Blasi also announced that featherweights A.J. McKee (3-0) and Danilo Belluardo (5-1) will also fight on the card, and that Melvin Manhoef will take a kickboxing bout.

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