A featherweight bout has been pulled from this weekends Bellator 50 event altogether as Season Four tournament quarter finalist Luis Palomino (16-7) was forced to withdraw due to a hand injury.
Palomino had been scheduled to face Edson Berto (16-8-1) at the Florida event, but rather than finding a last minute replacement officials opted to pull the match from the card.
Bellator 50 is scheduled to take place this Saturday, September 17, at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. The event features the opening round of the Season Five Middleweight tournament, with four quarterfinal bouts taking place on the main card.
The main card is set to air live on MTV2 in the U.S., while fans in Canada can tune into theScore for the live broadcast. The entire prelim card is set to stream live at Spike.com with a seven fights set to be shown.
News of the change was announced by MMAjunkie.com, who learned of the change via Bellator officials.
Other changes to the prelim card include:
In addition to the scratched bout, a few fighters have been replaced. Brett Cooper (13-7 MMA, 1-2 UFC) replaces Ryan Hodge (4-4 MMA, 0-0 BFC) in a middleweight bout with Valdir Araujo (8-2 MMA, 0-0 BFC).
Additionally, Martin Brown (2-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) replaces Robert “R.J.” Goodridge (4-1 MMA, 0-0 BFC) in a bout with lightweight James “J.P.” Reese (3-1 MMA, 1-0 BFC).