Although it’s being headlined by a matchup that is equal parts garbage and ass, the rest of Bellator’s first ever pay-per-view card is really starting to come together. Not only does it feature two title-fight rematches in Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler (lightweight) and King Mo Lawal vs. Emanuel Newton (interim LHW), but Bellator officials announced earlier today that the much delayed featherweight title fight between Pat Curran and Daniel Straus will be joining the main card as well.
MMAJunkie passes along Bjorn Rebney’s statement on what is quickly becoming one of the most stacked cards of the year. Yup, I just wrote that:
Pat Curran’s one of the best mixed martial artists we have in the game today. Before breaking his hand, Straus was a fixture in the top 10 rankings with a huge amount of talent. Curran vs. Straus is a fight I’ve wanted to see since Daniel won the tournament a year ago last May. This should be an epic world title fight and our pay-per-view provides the perfect stage.
As Rebney stated, Straus was expected to face Curran a little over a year ago after capturing the season 6 featherweight tournament, but was replaced by season 7 tourney winner Shahbulat Shamhalaev following a broken hand he suffered in training. Curran would go on to defeat the Russian replacement at Bellator 95 via first round guillotine choke.
It should be noted that Curran, who will be making his third title defense come November 2nd, previously defeated Straus via KO at an XFO event in 2009. While Straus has gone 17-1 (!) since then, a year layoff will do him no favors against a fighter of Curran’s caliber.
It’s funny, three rematches and a headlining bout between two guys with a combined record of 3-8 since 2010 is arguably a more stacked card than 2 out of the last 3 UFC events. Dana, you got some splainin’ to do.