Tag: Bellator 85

Bellator 85 Results: Chandler Dominates Hawn, Curran Sneaks by Pitbull, Babalu and Petruzelli Wash Out of LHW Tournament


(Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting.com)

If we needed any more proof that Michael Chandler deserves to be mentioned among the world’s best 155’ers, we got it last night at Bellator 85 in Irvine, California, when the reigning Bellator lightweight champion made decorated judoka Rick Hawn look like it was his first time on the mats. Chandler completed his takedowns with impressive ease, and when he saw an opportunity to take Hawn’s neck during a scramble in round two, he seized on it, sinking a rear-naked choke and showcasing the killer instinct that has now become a hallmark of Chandler’s game. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a fight, and this season’s lightweight tournament field doesn’t suggest that his next challenger will make things any harder for him. On the bright side, Chandler may have just established himself as Bellator’s greatest home-grown fighter — a budding superstar for the promotion’s new Spike TV era.

While Michael Chandler made his title defense with little resistance, reigning featherweight champion Pat Curran faced a much trickier test in Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Their title fight (which led off the Spike TV broadcast) played out as a 25-minute kickboxing match, which started slow but built into an entertaining and evenly-pitched battle. Curran’s striking was just a little more active and accurate, however, and if you were judging on facial damage through the fight, Pitbull’s swollen-shut right eye and bloodied mouth didn’t exactly scream “winner.” When the scores were announced, “Judo” Gene LeBell saw it for the challenger, but the other two judges made the right call in awarding the win to the defending champ.

In addition to the two title fights, Bellator 85’s main card also featured a pair of light-heavyweight tournament quarterfinals. Unfortunately, those UFC castoffs we mentioned yesterday are well on their way to becoming Bellator castoffs as well, as Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Seth Petruzelli were steamrolled by their lesser-known competitors. Russian M-1 Challenge vet Mikhail Zayats stunned Sobral with a spinning-backfist near the end of the first round of their fight, then swarmed him to the canvas and fired down punches until the fight was stopped. (Eddie Alvarez’s wife called that shit, you guys.)


(Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting.com)

If we needed any more proof that Michael Chandler deserves to be mentioned among the world’s best 155′ers, we got it last night at Bellator 85 in Irvine, California, when the reigning Bellator lightweight champion made decorated judoka Rick Hawn look like it was his first time on the mats. Chandler completed his takedowns with impressive ease, and when he saw an opportunity to take Hawn’s neck during a scramble in round two, he seized on it, sinking a rear-naked choke and showcasing the killer instinct that has now become a hallmark of Chandler’s game. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a fight, and this season’s lightweight tournament field doesn’t suggest that his next challenger will make things any harder for him. On the bright side, Chandler may have just established himself as Bellator’s greatest home-grown fighter — a budding superstar for the promotion’s new Spike TV era.

While Michael Chandler made his title defense with little resistance, reigning featherweight champion Pat Curran faced a much trickier test in Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Their title fight (which led off the Spike TV broadcast) played out as a 25-minute kickboxing match, which started slow but built into an entertaining and evenly-pitched battle. Curran’s striking was just a little more active and accurate, however, and if you were judging on facial damage through the fight, Pitbull’s swollen-shut right eye and bloodied mouth didn’t exactly scream “winner.” When the scores were announced, “Judo” Gene LeBell saw it for the challenger, but the other two judges made the right call in awarding the win to the defending champ.

In addition to the two title fights, Bellator 85′s main card also featured a pair of light-heavyweight tournament quarterfinals. Unfortunately, those UFC castoffs we mentioned yesterday are well on their way to becoming Bellator castoffs as well, as Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Seth Petruzelli were steamrolled by their lesser-known competitors. Russian M-1 Challenge vet Mikhail Zayats stunned Sobral with a spinning-backfist near the end of the first round of their fight, then swarmed him to the canvas and fired down punches until the fight was stopped. (Eddie Alvarez’s wife called that shit, you guys.)

It was an unexpected finish, but not nearly as strange as Petruzelli’s anti-climactic showing against Jacob Noe, in which the Silverback blew out his knee during a takedown attempt midway through the first round, and immediately turtled up as Noe ground-and-pounded the crap out of him. Ah well. We still have King Mo, right?

In prelim action, Emanuel Newton advanced in the LHW tournament bracket by choking out Atanas Djambazov, and UFC vet Jason Lambert pulled off a slick first-round armbar against Hector Ramirez in a non-tourney bout. Plus, Savant Young ended Mike Guymon’s brief lightweight comeback in violent fashion, and Jamie Yager indeed got his ass kicked. Hooray! Full results from Bellator 85 are below…

Main Card
– Michael Chandler def. Rick Hawn via submission (rear-naked choke), 3:07 of round 2
– Jacob Noe def. Seth Petruzelli via TKO, 2:51 of round 1
– Mikhail Zayats def. Renato Sobral via TKO, 4:49 of round 1
– Pat Curran def. Patricio Freire via split-decision (48-47 x 2, 47-48)

Preliminary Card
– Aaron Miller def. Joe Camacho via unanimous decision (30-27 x3)
– Jason Lambert def. Hector Ramirez via submission (inverted straight armbar), 3:59 of round 1
– J.J. Ambrose def. Brian Warren via submission (guillotine), 0:50 of round 2
– Emanuel Newton def. Atanas Djambazov via submission (rear-naked choke), 2:21 of round 2
– Savant Young def. Mike Guymon via KO, 0:48 of round 2
– Joe Williams def. Jamie Yager via TKO, 4:02 of round 1
– Cleber Luciano def. Mario Navarro via unanimous decision (30-27 x3)

Four Reasons Why You Should Watch Bellator’s Spike TV Debut Tonight


(Pat Curran, King Mo, and Michael Chandler — co-nominees in the “Best Kiss” category. / Photo via Getty Images)

Bellator’s eighth season kicks off tonight on Spike TV (10/9c), and now that the promotion has left Friday nights, you might even be thinking about watching the show. Here’s why that’s a good idea…

1. Michael Chandler is the second-greatest undefeated fighter in the world. Since winning Bellator’s lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez in November 2011, Chandler has competed exactly once — a 56-second TKO of Akihiro Gono in a non-title mismatch last May. Now carrying a perfect record of 10-0, Chandler is once again facing a legit challenge in the form of Rick Hawn, the former Olympic judoka and Bellator mainstay who dropped down from welterweight last year and swept the Season 6 Lightweight Tournament.

2. Pat Curran is also an entertaining son-of-a-bitch. Undefeated at 145 pounds, Curran also competed just once last year, when he very nearly ended Joe Warren’s life to win Bellator’s featherweight title. We’ve been itching to see him back in the game, and he’ll be leading off tonight’s Spike broadcast with a belt-defense against Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Speaking of guys who have been sidelined for a while, Pitbull hasn’t been in the cage since he won the Season Four Featherweight Tournament in 2011, partly due to a broken hand suffered in training last year.


(Pat Curran, King Mo, and Michael Chandler — co-nominees in the “Best Kiss” category. / Photo via Getty Images)

Bellator’s eighth season kicks off tonight on Spike TV (10/9c), and now that the promotion has left Friday nights, you might even be thinking about watching the show. Here’s why that’s a good idea…

1. Michael Chandler is the second-greatest undefeated fighter in the world. Since winning Bellator’s lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez in November 2011, Chandler has competed exactly once — a 56-second TKO of Akihiro Gono in a non-title mismatch last May. Now carrying a perfect record of 10-0, Chandler is once again facing a legit challenge in the form of Rick Hawn, the former Olympic judoka and Bellator mainstay who dropped down from welterweight last year and swept the Season 6 Lightweight Tournament.

2. Pat Curran is also an entertaining son-of-a-bitch. Undefeated at 145 pounds, Curran also competed just once last year, when he very nearly ended Joe Warren’s life to win Bellator’s featherweight title. We’ve been itching to see him back in the game, and he’ll be leading off tonight’s Spike broadcast with a belt-defense against Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Speaking of guys who have been sidelined for a while, Pitbull hasn’t been in the cage since he won the Season Four Featherweight Tournament in 2011, partly due to a broken hand suffered in training last year.

3. The card features an orgy of UFC light-heavyweight castoffs. In LHW tournament quarterfinal action, Renato “Babalu” Sobral will be making his Bellator debut against Mikhail Zayats, and Seth Petruzelli will face Jacob Noe, in his first appearance since KO’ing Ricco Rodriguez in August 2011. In addition, the Spike.com prelims (8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT) feature a match between Jason Lambert and Hector “Sick Dog” Ramirez. (I had to check Wikipedia to make sure those two didn’t previously fight on a UFC card sometime in 2006-2007. They didn’t.) Nobody would mistake these guys for top-ranked 205′ers, but they do have a proven track record of exciting slugfests — and at least you know who they are.

4. Mike Guymon continues his lightweight comeback. Joker’s 2010-2011 stint as a welterweight in the UFC ended in a disappointing 1-3 tally, with all three of his losses coming by first-round submission. Since then, Guymon has dropped to lightweight, picking up a pair of rebound wins for BAMMA USA. Now he’s back on a bigger stage, facing journeyman Savant Young on the Bellator 85 prelims. A win here could revitalize his career.

Honorable mention: Jamie Yager, one of TUF‘s most aggravating heels of all time, will be making his Bellator debut against Joe Williams during tonight’s prelims. Who knows — maybe he’ll get his ass kicked.

Bellator Confirms Stacked Lineup for Jan. 17 Spike TV Premiere, Debut Date for King Mo and ‘Babalu’

Bellator’s first event on Spike TV will take place Thursday, January 17th, at the University of California’s Bren Center in Irvine, California, and will be headlined by a pair of title fights. The promotion confirmed the news today, revealing that undefeated phenom Michael Chandler will make his first official lightweight title defense at the event (aka Bellator 85) against Rick Hawn, the 14-1 Olympic judoka who won the Season 5 lightweight tournament earlier this year.

Also on the card, featherweight champion Pat Curran — who’s 4-0 since dropping to 145 and is coming off his near-murder of Joe Warren — will be putting his belt on the line against explosive contender Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Though Freire won all three of his fights in 2011, winning the Season 4 featherweight tournament, he wasn’t able to compete in 2012, partly due to injuries.

And that’s not all. During a Bellator/Spike TV conference call held earlier today, many more details about Bellator 85 and the promotion’s upcoming eighth season were announced. For instance…

Bellator’s first event on Spike TV will take place Thursday, January 17th, at the University of California’s Bren Center in Irvine, California, and will be headlined by a pair of title fights. The promotion confirmed the news today, revealing that undefeated phenom Michael Chandler will make his first official lightweight title defense at the event (aka Bellator 85) against Rick Hawn, the 14-1 Olympic judoka who won the Season 5 lightweight tournament earlier this year.

Also on the card, featherweight champion Pat Curran — who’s 4-0 since dropping to 145 and is coming off his near-murder of Joe Warren — will be putting his belt on the line against explosive contender Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. Though Freire won all three of his fights in 2011, winning the Season 4 featherweight tournament, he wasn’t able to compete in 2012, partly due to injuries.

And that’s not all. During a Bellator/Spike TV conference call held earlier today, many more details about Bellator 85 and the promotion’s upcoming eighth season were announced. For instance…

– Season 8 will last 12 weeks, and will feature five tournaments in the featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.

– Via MMAJunkie: “[Bellator 85] will feature Seth Petruzelli and Mike Guymon, plus the Bellator debut of Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral in the light heavyweight tourney against Russian Mikhail Zayats.” UFC vets Jason Lambert and Hector Ramirez are also scheduled to compete.

– Bellator 86 will take place the following week, January 24th, at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma, and will feature Ben Askren‘s latest title defense against Karl Amoussou, King Mo vs. TBA, and welterweight fights featuring Ben Saunders and Douglas Lima.

– The postponed Season 7 featherweight tournament final between Rad Martinez and Shahbulat Shamhalaev will happen sometime in Season 8, since Martinez has to take care of his father this weekend. (You can learn more about that here, if you want to feel sad for the rest of the day.)

Report: Bellator’s Spike TV Debut Targeted for January 10th in Atlantic City [UPDATE: OR IS IT??]


(Taffer my good man, you finally have some competition.)

In its seven-season history, Bellator’s events have bounced from Friday nights to Thursdays, to Saturdays, and back to Fridays again. That, coupled with the promotion’s changes in cable partners (anybody remember the ESPN Deportes days?) and its traveling-circus approach to event scheduling, may have worked against the organization gaining a foothold in the market over the years.

Luckily, Bellator’s impending Spike TV deal will give its events a sharp boost in exposure — and they’ll no longer be shown on a night that translates into guaranteed death for viewership numbers. MMAJunkie is reporting that Bellator’s first event of the Spike era is slated for Thursday, January 10th, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As Junkie wrote, the event will serve as Bellator 85, and will air on Spike TV following TNA Impact Wrestling.

Switching to Thursday nights can only be a good thing for Bellator, which has averaged just 168,700 viewers per broadcast this season on MTV2. Coincidentally, the UFC may be moving their own Friday-night cable show — The Ultimate Fighter — to a different night as well. Although Jon Jones’s manager Malki Kawa and UFC president Dana White both claimed recently that TUF was moving back to Wednesdays, FX’s Vice President of Media Relations told MMAFighting that such a move was “highly unlikely,” adding: “FX has not announced the official date or night that the next installment of TUF will air…The official announcement will be coming in the next two or three weeks.”

Bellator 85 will feature the winners of Spike TV’s “Vote for the Fight” fan poll — we already submitted a write-in vote for War Machine vs. Mika Tan’s Ex-Boyfriend II — but no matchups have been formally announced yet.

Update: The story just took a weird turn — now an unnamed Spike TV exec is saying that Bellator’s Thursday-night move isn’t official yet: “We are still deciding a few options, still looking at staying on Fridays or moving to the old TUF slot on Wednesdays.” Basically, the cable networks are playing a game of scheduling chicken. MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer explains after the jump…


(Taffer my good man, you finally have some competition.)

In its seven-season history, Bellator’s events have bounced from Friday nights to Thursdays, to Saturdays, and back to Fridays again. That, coupled with the promotion’s changes in cable partners (anybody remember the ESPN Deportes days?) and its traveling-circus approach to event scheduling, may have worked against the organization gaining a foothold in the market over the years.

Luckily, Bellator’s impending Spike TV deal will give its events a sharp boost in exposure — and they’ll no longer be shown on a night that translates into guaranteed death for viewership numbers. MMAJunkie is reporting that Bellator’s first event of the Spike era is slated for Thursday, January 10th, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As Junkie wrote, the event will serve as Bellator 85, and will air on Spike TV following TNA Impact Wrestling.

Switching to Thursday nights can only be a good thing for Bellator, which has averaged just 168,700 viewers per broadcast this season on MTV2. Coincidentally, the UFC may be moving their own Friday-night cable show — The Ultimate Fighter — to a different night as well. Although Jon Jones’s manager Malki Kawa and UFC president Dana White both claimed recently that TUF was moving back to Wednesdays, FX’s Vice President of Media Relations told MMAFighting that such a move was “highly unlikely,” adding: “FX has not announced the official date or night that the next installment of TUF will air…The official announcement will be coming in the next two or three weeks.”

Bellator 85 will feature the winners of Spike TV’s “Vote for the Fight” fan poll — we already submitted a write-in vote for War Machine vs. Mika Tan’s Ex-Boyfriend II — but no matchups have been formally announced yet.

Update: The story just took a weird turn — now an unnamed Spike TV exec is saying that Bellator’s Thursday-night move isn’t official yet: “We are still deciding a few options, still looking at staying on Fridays or moving to the old TUF slot on Wednesdays.” Basically, the cable networks are playing a game of scheduling chicken. MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer explains after the jump…

The game going on is that neither FX nor Spike want to be the one to officially announce what night their MMA programming will be airing starting in January. Both figure it is more effective to be the counter puncher. Most likely, Spike wants to air Bellator on a night without UFC competition programming. FX hasn’t directly said so, but there have been indications they are looking at airing MMA programming head-to-head with Spike. It’s a retribution game since Spike put on old UFC programming head-to-head with key FX and FOX events this past year when Spike had the rights to air UFC footage from its MMA library. The feeling from the FX side is that Spike confused the marketplace and somewhat hurt the debut of the new The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) season earlier this year…

Professional wrestling is one of the Spike’s highest-rated shows and theoretically would be the strongest potential lead-in programming for MMA. Spike put UFC on the map in 2005 by airing the show immediately after WWE’s Monday Night Raw, a popular pro wrestling show. Impact is not in the same ballpark as Raw when it comes to ratings, though, averaging 1.24 million viewers on average over the past four weeks…

If one wants to avoid the NFL juggernaut in the fall, the strongest options are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. However, FX has its hottest show, “Sons of Anarchy,” on Tuesdays. Both companies are currently running on Fridays, doing lower ratings than either has done in the past.

There is no NFL on Saturdays in fall most weeks, although there is college football. Bellator was previously having to compete against both UFC pay-per-views and major live events most Saturdays last fall as well as HBO Boxing. However, ratings declined with the move to Friday.