In an exciting if overlooked Saturday night fight card, Ronnie Mann put on an impressive showing in his Bellator Fighting Championships debut, while Richard Hale and Christian M’Pumbu advanced to the light heavyweight tournament final at Bellator 42.
Mann spent three rounds brutalizing an overmatched Josh Arocho, winning a unanimous decision in which one judge awarded him a shocking (but not completely unreasonable) 30-25 victory, while the other two judges gave him the more conventional 30-27 scores. The British Mann was making his Bellator debut, and he was confident and aggressive, displaying great positional control and violent ground and pound. Mann, who improved his professional MMA record to 19-2-1, showed that he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with in Bellator’s featherweight division, although he’s going to have to beat much better opponents than Arocho, whose record fell to 6-10.