Press Release – Newport Beach, CA. (December 3, 2012) – As Bellator prepares for its highly anticipated move to Spike TV in January, the seventh season is coming to close with a stacked night of fights on December 7th from Caesars Atlantic City. The night will be headlined by a Lightweight Tournament Finals fight between Rad Martinez and Team Bombsquad’s Shahbulat Shamhalaev, Bellator Women’s Champion Zoila Gurgel taking on Jessica Eye and the return of former Bellator Bantamweight Champion and Philadelphia’s own Zach Makovsky.
Tickets for Bellator 83 are on sale now and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com or at the Caesars Box Office. Tickets are priced from $52-$165.
The event will broadcast LIVE starting at 7 p.m. EST on MTV2 and in commercial-free HD on EPIX. The preliminary card, featuring some of the area’s top local talent will be streamed LIVE and FREE on Spike.com starting at 6 p.m. EST.
Known as one of the top young bantamweights in the sport, Tiger Schulmann’s Jimmie Rivera is back with Bellator and will put his nearly spotless 10-1 record on the line as he battles submission ace Jesse Brock, who recently collected victories over Tyson Nam and Justin Roberts.
The wildly popular Matt Lozano returns to Bellator after an explosive debut at Bellator 77. Fighting out of Team Total Domination in Red Lion, Pennsylviania, Lozano will have the crowd on his side when he battles Muay Thai specialist and head instructor of the Fight Firm in Philadelphia Tuan Pham.
Now training exclusively in Philadelphia, the undefeated Kelvin Tiller will continue his impress run through the Bellator ranks when he battles Najim Wali out of Virginia. Tiller has surrounded himself with some of the sport’s top trainers, including Relson Gracie and Phil and Ricardo Migliarese.
Brylan Van Artsdalen returns to the Bellator cage and is primed for a big showing as the Daddis Fight Camps’ trainer will lock horns with the dangerous Terrell Hobbs in a featherweight affair.
Central Pennsylvania native Darrell Horcher will look to keep his unbeaten streak alive when he battles New Jersey’s Chris Liguori. Training alongside Frankie Edgar, Ricardo Almeida and host of other MMA elite, Liguori is looking to make a huge first impression during his Bellator debut.
With some of the best talent for across the area, Bellator 83 from Caesars Atlantic City is primed for a huge night of fights. The full fight card can be found below, as well as links to interviews featuring Zach Makovsky, Kelvin Tiller and Brylan Van Artsdalen.
Zach Makovsky: http://bit.ly/SBR4ho
Kelvin Tiller: http://bit.ly/WEr4jW
Brylan Van Artsdalen: http://bit.ly/VgOlXM
Bellator 83 Main Card:
Featherweight Tournament Finals: Shahbulat Shamhalaev vs. Rad Martinez
Bantamweight Feature Fight: Zach Makovsky vs. Anthony Leone
Women’s Feature Fight: Zoila Gurgel vs. Jessica Eye
Preliminary Card:
Heavyweight Feature Fight: Mike Wessel vs. Alexei Kudin
Catchweight Feature Fight (195 lbs.): Kelvin Tiller vs. Najim Wali
Bantamweight Feature Fight: Jesse Brock vs. Jimmie Rivera
Lightweight Feature Fight: Darrell Horcher vs. Chris Liguori
Featherweight Feature Fight: Terrell Hobbs vs. Brylan Van Artsdalen
Flyweight Feature Fight: Tuan Pham vs. Matt Lozano
Bantamweight Feature Fight: Claudio Ledesma vs. Bo Harris
For more information, visit Bellator.com, follow Bellator on Twitter @BellatorMMA, follow Bellator Chairman & CEO Bjorn Rebney @BjornRebney and check out Bellator on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Bellator
About Bellator Fighting Championships
Bellator Fighting Championships is the world’s largest tournament based Mixed Martial Arts organization. Televised to nearly 500 Million homes worldwide, Bellator’s majority owner is entertainment giant Viacom. In the United States, Bellator can be seen on MTV2, in commercial-free HD on EPIX. Starting in January of 2013 Bellator will be broadcast on MMA television leader, Spike TV. With over 150 world-class athletes under contract, Bellator is home to many of the sport’s top athletes. Bellator’s founder &CEO, Bjorn Rebney, an experienced fighting sports and entertainment executive with a deep commitment to the purity and integrity of the sport of MMA and its athletes, believed that title shots should be earned, not given. This belief gave rise to Bellator’s real sport, tournament-based format, which gives Bellator’s tournaments a true playoff feel that keeps the sport true and distances itself from the political/subjective side of fighting sports. Bellator Fighting Championships’ executive team is comprised of top industry professionals in television production, live event orchestration, fighter development/relations, venue procurement, sponsorship creation/development, international licensing, marketing, advertising, publicity and commission relations. Bellator is based in Southern, California.
About MTV2
Available in approximately 80 million homes MTV2 is man’s best friend. Since its launch in 1996, the network has reflected the subversive interests and behaviors of young men with a compelling and diverse programming line-up inspired by ordinary guys who do extraordinary things. MTV2 is part of Viacom Media Networks, one of the world’s leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. For more information, go to www.mtvpress.com or follow us on Twitter @MTVPress.
About EPIX
EPIX, a joint venture between Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), its Paramount Pictures unit, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), is a next-generation premium entertainment channel, video-on-demand and online service launched on October 30, 2009. With access to more than 15,000 motion pictures spanning the vast libraries of its partners and other studios, EPIX provides a powerful entertainment experience with more feature films on demand and online and more HD movies than any other service. It is the only premium service providing its entire monthly line-up of new Hollywood titles, classic feature films, original series, music and comedy specials through the linear channel, video-on-demand and online at EpixHD.com, the leading online destination for movies.
EPIX has made the commitment to deliver the industry’s most expansive online collection of movies, making more than 3,000 titles available on EpixHD.com. The service is available to over 30 million homes nationwide through distribution partners including Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DISH Network, Mediacom Communications, NCTC, Suddenlink Communications and Verizon FiOS.
About mun2
mun2 is the leading Hispanic cable network for young millennial adults 18-34. From reality to music, on-air to digital, mun2 creates original content that resonates across a multi-screen platform. Young, vibrant and unabashedly Latino, mun2 has a distribution to over 38 million households. The network is part of Telemundo Media, a division of NBCUniversal.
