Press Release – Newport Beach, CA. (January 11th, 2013) – The tournament field is set as Bellator MMA has announced today the final tournament pairings in the Season 8 Lightweight Bracket. Emanating from Michigan’s Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort on January 31, submission ace Ricardo Tirloni will battle the undefeated Will Brooks in the quarterfinals of the Bellator MMA Lightweight Tournament live on Spike.
Tickets for the event are on sale now and are available at StarTickets.com, Bellator.com and The Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort Box Office. Tickets are priced from $20-$65. The event will broadcast LIVE starting at 10 p.m. EST on Spike, as well as in Spanish language on mun2. The preliminary card will be streamed LIVE and FREE on Spike.com starting at 8 p.m. EST.
Brooks joins Bellator fresh of a brutal knockout of longtime MMA veteran Satoru Kitaoka, who holds notable victories over Carlos Condit, Paul Daley, and Takanori Gomi. Currently splitting time between his Chicago home and American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Brooks has been preparing for this opportunity his entire career, and is counting the days until January 31st.
“I’m just really excited about this opportunity, the whole idea of a tournament really gets me going, and I just love it, and it’s why I wanted to come to Bellator,” Brooks said. “This is what it’s all about, and I’m ready to go out and get it. Fighting on Spike is dream, this organization is on the rise, and I can’t wait to be a part of it. When I have millions of people watching, that’s when I step up my game, and it’s exactly what you will see on January 31st.”
For Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Ricardo Tirloni, the chance to get back into another tournament is all the 29 year old could ask for after suffering a close split-decision loss at the hands of Dave Jansen. Training under the tutelage under Luta Livre black belt Marcelo Brigadeiro, Tirloni is primed for another long tournament run.
With Tirloni vs. Brooks set, the field is now complete as Lloyd Woodard will battle David Rickels, while Thiago Michel will take on Tiger Sarnavskiy, and Patricky Pitbull battles Guillaume DeLorenzi.
“With the latest additions of Will Brooks and Ricardo Tirloni, this Lightweight Tournament is just a stacked collection of true finishers, and I expect another huge night inside Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort.”
For more information, visit Bellator.com, follow Bellator on Twitter @BellatorMMA, follow Bellator Chairman & CEO Bjorn Rebney @BjornRebney and check out Bellator on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Bellator
About Bellator MMA
Bellator MMA is the world’s largest tournament based Mixed Martial Arts organization. Televised to nearly 500 Million homes worldwide in over 107 countries, Bellator’s majority owner is entertainment giant Viacom. In the United States, Bellator can be seen on Spike TV, the MMA television leader. With over 150 world-class athletes under contract, Bellator is home to many of the sport’s top mixed martial artists. Bellator’s founder & CEO, Bjorn Rebney, an experienced fighting sports and entertainment executive with a deep commitment to the purity and integrity of the sport of MMA and its athletes. Bellator’s core philosophy is that title shots should be earned, not given. This belief gave rise to Bellator’s real sport, tournament-based format, which gives Bellator’s tournaments a true playoff feel that keeps the sport true and distances itself from the subjective side of fighting sports found in organizations that utilize a matchmaking/casting formula. Bellator Fighting Championships’ executive team is comprised of top industry professionals in television production, live event orchestration, fighter development/relations, venue procurement, sponsorship creation/development, international licensing, marketing, advertising, publicity and commission relations. Bellator is based in Newport Beach, California.
About Spike TV:
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About mun2
mun2 is the leading Hispanic cable network for young millennial adults 18-34. From reality to music, on-air to digital, mun2 creates original content that resonates across a multi-screen platform. Young, vibrant and unabashedly Latino, mun2 has a distribution to over 38 million households. The network is part of Telemundo Media, a division of NBCUniversal.