(Who knew that this moment would become a metaphor for Eric Prindle’s Bellator career?)
At this rate, Bellator’s season five heavyweight tournament is going to take longer to come to a close than Strikeforce’s heavyweight tournament, a notion this writer didn’t think was possible until earlier today. Because believe it or not, season five winner Eric Prindle has been forced to withdraw from a scheduled match on less than a week’s notice yet again, this time from his title fight with heavyweight champion Cole Konrad.
The fight, which was supposed to go down at this weekend’s Bellator 65 card, has now been pushed back to May 25th as a result of a hand injury Prindle suffered in training, an injury that he described as “all my own fault.”
For those of you who have not followed the story of Eric Prindle’s Bellator run, it is not unlike that of the television show Lost. Every time closure seemed within sight, the rug was abruptly pulled out from beneath the viewing audience at the last moment, leaving them feeling cheated and pissed off, yet somehow more pretentious as well. This first happened in the original finals of the heavyweight tournament, which took place back in November of 2011. Prindle’s opponent at the time, fellow tourney finalist Thiago Santos, nearly punted Prindle’s testicles halfway across this building, leaving the fight to be declared a no-contest when Prindle could not continue.
The rematch was scheduled for Bellator 61, but the former U.S soldier was forced to withdraw from the fight just one day beforehand due to an alleged case of the flu. The rematch was then rescheduled for Bellator 62, and wouldn’t you know it, both fighters actually managed to make it to the weigh-ins. This was where things would go awry once again, as Santos would weigh in at a scale shattering 12.8 pounds over the heavyweight limit. Prindle was awarded a title shot against Conrad, and the fight was scheduled for Bellator 65.
Conrad has not fought since out gunning UFC veteran Paul Buentello in one of Bellator’s infamous non-title bouts at Bellator 48 in 2011 and has yet to defend the belt since submitting Neil Grove at Bellator 32 in October of 2010 to earn it.
Like we said, Prindle’s match against Konrad is scheduled for May 25th, but we wouldn’t recommend buying those tickets just yet.
Bellator 65, on the other hand, goes down this weekend from the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey and features a headlining bantamweight title fight between champion Zach “Fun Size” Makovsky and challenger Eduardo Dantas.
-J. Jones