Competitors for this weekends Bellator 52 event, including the eight Season Five Heavyweight Tournament fighters, stepped on the scales this Friday at Jacks Daniel’s Bar & Grill in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The eight heavyweights had no issues making weight for their bouts but a last second change saw the removal of Thiago ‘Big Monster’ Santos (8-1) from the card. Santos had been scheduled to face Blagoi Ivanov (4-0) but was unable to make the journey to the U.S. due to “Bureaucratic Hurdles” according to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.
Stepping in as a late replacement is TUF 10 alum Zak Jensen (10-7), who was to face Josh Burns on the prelim card of the event.
“Zak Jensen vs. Josh Burns was the alternate fight for this tournament,” Rebney said. “We were in a production meeting … and I was like, ‘There’s probably a five percent chance ‘Big Monster’ makes it through. He’s running through hurdle after bureaucratic hurdle relative to his visa out of Brazil.’
“We’ve had senators and different folks working on it that last 72 hours, and it’s just not getting handled.”
Bellator 52 is scheduled to take place on October 1 at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The main card will air on live television on MTV2 in the U.S. and on theScore in Canada. The prelim card is set to stream live at Spike.com
The full weigh-in results for Bellator 52 are as follows:
Main Card
Heavyweight Quarterfinal bout: Neil Grove (265.5) vs. Mike Hayes (228)
Heavyweight Quarterfinal bout: Blagoi Ivanov (244) vs. Zak Jensen (265)
Heavyweight Quarterfinal bout: Eric Prindle (265.5) vs. Abe Wagner (247.5)
Heavyweight Quarterfinal bout: Mark Holata (258) vs. Ron Sparks (263)
Local Feature Fights
Catchweight (150 lbs.) bout: Genair da Silva (150.4)* vs. Bryan Goldsby (144.4)
Lightweight bout: Cosmo Alexandre (155.6)# vs. Josh Quayhagen (156)
Heavyweight bout: Liron Wilson (227.4) vs. Justin Frazier (263)
Catchweight (213 lbs.) bout: Van Buren (204.2) vs. Nick Nichols (213.6)+
* Da Silva and Goldsby agreed to a 150 lb catchweight bout.
# Alexandre made weight on his second attempt one hour later
+ Nickols and Buren agreed to a 213 lb caatchweight bout