Bellator 250 results and highlights: Mousasi wins middleweight title over Lima

Bellator MMA

No champ-champ moment for Douglas Lima at Bellator 250.

Bellator 250 is in the books and unfortunately it was not exactly a terrific night of fights at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. The main event between welterweight champion Douglas Lima (32-8) and Gegard Mousasi (47-7-2) was contested for the vacant middleweight title. Either Lima would be a champ-champ or Mousasi would win back the belt he had lost to the now retired Rafael Lovato Jr.

There was plenty of intrigue surrounding this matchup, but the fight itself sucked. It really just wasn’t good. Lima was tentative and fought with his back close to the fence for a majority of the contest, and he failed to build on the leg kicks he’d landed on Mousasi. Gegard dominated the opening round with a takedown and some heavy ground-and-pound, but the ensuing three rounds were largely tepid striking affairs. Combination striking was kept to a minimum and it was just low output all the way.

In round five, Lima may have had the edge on the feet before Mousasi secured a takedown into side control. As was the theme for the duration of the fight, there wasn’t a lot of offense on the ground but it was pretty clear that Mousasi deserved the nod.

Official result: Gegard Mousasi def. Douglas Lima by unanimous decision (48-47, 49-46, 49-46) to win the Bellator middleweight title

No champ-champ for Lima but Mousasi has won 11 of his last 12 and he’s got the belt again at 185 lbs.

Henry Corrales (18-5) def. Brandon Girtz (16-10) by split decision (30-27, 27-30, 30-27)

Girtz’s trip down to featherweight from lightweight didn’t go very well. The veteran former title challenger Corrales was able to outclass and outstrike Girtz virtually from start to finish. Both men were willing to throw down and fire off some heaters, but there’s no doubt that Corrales was not just the more accurate of the two but the more composed. Wrestling was kept to a minimum, with Corrales showing impressive balance in fending off Girtz’s attempts, and he really took it to Girtz with a steady diet of leg kicks and counterpunches.

As you could imagine, Girtz tried to fire off serious knockout worthy shots but without a sturdy right leg he found himself unable to come close to hurting Corrales and he often missed by a considerably distance. It’s two straight losses for Girtz, whereas Corrales gets back on the winning track after consecutive losses to Darrion Caldwell and Juan Archuleta. Corrales will be going down to bantamweight for his next fight.

Oh yeah, ignore Doug Crosby’s obscene 30-27 scorecard for Girtz. That was a horrible score.

Dalton Rosta (4-0) defeated Ty Gwerder (5-2) via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Rosta maintained his undefeated record in rather comfortable fashion. Hawaii’s Gwerder had sporadic success with body and leg kicks but otherwise there wasn’t a whole lot of damager delivered on the feet. Rosta was able to dominate his opponent with timely takedowns and dominant positions, advancing to mount on multiple occasions. Gwerder was buzzed by a right-left combination in the final round, which led to Rosta’s last successful takedown and a prolonged stretch of full mount and back mount. Rosta definitely dropped some more serious ground-and-pound in the last frame compared to the previous two.

Preliminary card results

Jake Hager defeated Brandon Calton via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)

Sabah Homasi defeated Bobby Voelker via KO (flying knee and punches), :20 of round 2

Johnny Eblen defeated Taylor Johnson via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)

Adam Borics defeated Erick Sanchez via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)

Cody Law defeated Orlando Ortega via submission (D’Arce choke), 2:41 of round 1