Cole Konrad winning the Bellator Heavyweight Title
A Bellator heavyweight title bout between champion Cole ‘The Polar Bear’ Konrad (8-0) and Season Five Tournament winner Eric ‘The American Soldier’ Prindle (7-1, 1NC) was expected to take place at this Friday’s Bellator 65 event, but Prindle Tweeted (@ericprindlemma) a new date for the fight naming May 25th for the bout.
Currently Bellator has only officially announced up to Bellator 69, which is scheduled for May 18, 2012, thus making the May 25 date Bellator 70. No other information has surfaced at time of writing concerning this event.
Prindle was recently awarded with the Season Five tournament crown after two re-scheduled bouts with Brazilian Thiago Santos failed to materialize. Both men fought back in November at Belltor 59 with the bout ending in a “No Contest” after an accidental groin kick by Silva, which left Prindle unable to continue.
The two fighters were re-scheduled to fight at Bellator 61 last month, but “flu-like” symptoms to Prindle as well as rumors that Silva was heavy delayed the match. The two were rescheduled one week later for Bellator 62, with Prindle making weight but Santos failing too, coming in 12-lbs overweight. Bellator officials simple called off the bout and crowned Prindle as the season five tournament champ.
‘The American Soldier’ had won seven straight before the “No Contest” ruling, having beaten Abe Wagner and Ron Sparks to make it into the final.
The bout will be Konrad’s first title defense since winning the belt back in October 2010 versus Neil Grove who was recently stopped at last weekends Super Fights League event in India. Konrad has fought once since winning the title, a unanimous decision versus Paul Buentello in a non-title ‘Super-Fight’ at Bellator 48.