Author: Matt Erickson [matt-erickson]

The decision to walk away form doing what he loves was a tough one for Brian Rogers.

Fortunately, he went from one passion to another and still kept his foot in the door with what he left behind.

Rogers, an Ohio-based middleweight for Bellator Fighting Championships, gets a home bout Friday against Dominique Steele at Bellator 78, which takes place at the Nutter Center at Wright State University.

You can watch a live web stream of tonight’s Bellator 78 event live on MMAjunkie.com beginning at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT).

The event takes place at Nutter Center at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio. The main card includes a pair of welterweight tournament semifinals, plus bouts featuring Bellator standouts Daniel Straus and Brian Rogers.

Semifinalists Lyman Good and Michail Tsarev meet in the night’s main event, while Andrey Koreshkov and Marius Zaromskis fight for the other berth in the finals.

Marius Zaromskis has put a little pressure on himself to win the Bellator welterweight tournament.

More than a fat $100,000 check and a title shot are on the line for the Lithuanian. Those surely are important. But Zaromskis wouldn’t complain if a tourney win allowed him to get his wife to the United States.

Right now, Zaromskis lives in the U.S. while training, and his wife? She’s in the U.K, where she can only watch his fights online.

Not yet two weeks removed from its most recent trip to Brazil, the UFC already has a return date picked out.

Sources close to the promotion on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.com that the promotion is targeting Jan. 19 for a pay-per-view that would be UFC 156. An exact city, however, is not yet known.

The event will be the UFC’s fifth in the South American country over a period of what will be less than one-and-a-half years.

Though he was hoping to fight by the end of the year, Josh Koscheck will wait for the calendar to turn.

When he returns, the former UFC welterweight title challenger has a few ideas of whom he’d like to fight. It’s a short list, but it’s a veritable who’s-who of the 170-pound class.

Koscheck on Tuesday named Nick Diaz, Demian Maia, Jake Ellenberger and Rory MacDonald as opponents he’s interested in.

Anthony Pettis remains hospitalized for precautionary reasons following an attack of cellulitis that sparked concerns about his fighting future.

Trainer Duke Roufus on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.com that he’s waiting to pick the fighter up from an area hospital and estimates the two will train next week at Roufusport Academy in Milwaukee.

A proposed fight between Pettis and Donald Cerrone in January hasn’t technically been booked, he said, but shouldn’t be hindered by the mishap.