Tag: Bellator

With two title fights on the card and a showcase bout for one of the promotion’s most promising stars, Bellator pulled out all the stops when it rolled through Albuquerque, N.M. for Bellator 97.

Lightweight champion Michael Chandler put his 155-pound title on the line against David Rickels in the card’s main event. The Team Alliance member was originally slated to face Dave Jansen on the card, but when the Season 7 tournament winner was forced to withdraw due to injury, the promotion tapped “The Caveman,” who won the Season 8 pairings.

Ultimately the change of opponent didn’t matter much as Chandler kept his undefeated record intact by starching Rickels in the opening minute of the first round. The victory at Bellator 97 was another glaring example of Chandler’s status as one of the top lightweight fighters on the planet.

The other championship tilt on the card featured longtime welterweight title holder Ben Askren as he attempted to make his fourth successful title defense against Andrey Koreshkov. The former Olympian and two-time Division I national champion wrestler from Missouri has been heavily criticized for his fighting style throughout his young career, and his performance on Wednesday night will do little to turn that particular tide.

The 29-year-old wrestled his way to a lopsided victory over Koreshkov as the exhausted Russian was stopped via TKO in the fourth round.

With the victory, Askren not only remains undefeated but further cements his “top dog” status in what is easily Bellator‘s deepest division.

While the bout between Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and Jacob Noe did not have a title on the line, the heated grudge match was easily one of the most anticipated scraps on the card. In the lead up to the fight, both men used social media and interviews to launch bombs at one another, but when the cage door closed at the Santa Ana Star Center, it was all Lawal.

Where Lawal has primarily showcased his power striking in past Bellator showings, against Noe he used his strong wrestling skills to neutralize everything Noe did for the first two rounds, until he pounded out the stoppage finish in the third round.

With the victory, the former standout wrestler from Oklahoma State University not only picks up his second consecutive win but officially earns the opportunity to fight for the light heavyweight title in his next showing.

But no matter how impressive the action was for the three biggest fights on the card, there were still a handful of rough showings and a few downright bizarre occurrences. 

Let’s take a look at the good, bad and strange from Bellator 97.

 

The Good

Michael Chandler is for real, ladies and gentleman. Lighting fast hands, knockout power and a solid wrestling game will make Chandler a difficult champion to unseat.

Moving on.

Ben Askren‘s style of fighting may be miles away from appealing to the MMA masses, but one can hardly argue its effectiveness. The former Missouri wrestling standout presents constant pressure and has proven the ability time and time again to put his opposition where he wants them.

Against Koreshkov it was no different. From the opening bell the Milwaukee-based fighter put the Russian striker on his back and made him look helpless in the process. 

While Askren‘s style may be panned as boring, I largely subscribe to the philosophy it is the opposition’s responsibility to stop what is being done to them. There are zero secrets about what the welterweight champion is coming out to do, and if the fighters who step into the Bellator cage with him can’t stop from getting dumped on their backs, it’s on them, not Askren.

One of the best looks on Wednesday night came from Muhammed Lawal. “King Mo” made a tactical switch from his recent stand-up heavy performances and simply made Jacob Noe fight him where he is the strongest.

Granted, the performance may have earned some boos from the crowd, but Lawal is there to win and that is exactly what he did. Furthermore, the Las Vegas transplant’s victory also served a greater purpose by earning him a shot at the light heavyweight title.

Lawal came to Bellator to become a champion and now he will have that opportunity. 

The final entry into this category comes courtesy of Brazilian powerhouse Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. The former featherweight title challenger put a smooth beating on Jared Downing to open the televised portion of the card and racked up another impressive knockout for an already violent highlight reel. 

The victory over Downing was Freire‘s fourth successful showing in his last five bouts, with his only setback during this run coming in a split-decision loss to current champion Pat Curran back at Bellator 85.

 

The Bad

Any time a fighter is going to take the hard angle of trash-talking before a fight, it is crucial they show up ready to tangle.

In Noe’s case, not only did he have nearly zero offense to throw in Lawal‘s direction, but he offered little resistance to the former Strikeforce champion’s takedowns. That being said, with Lawal‘s outstanding wrestling pedigree, Noe being unable to stop every attempt Lawal made to put him on the canvas is one thing, but not being able to get back to his feet is an entirely different subject.

Any way the subject is cut, Noe talked a mess in the buildup and failed to show up on fight night.

Another entry into this category came following Lawal‘s victory when Bellator made a special announcement regarding recent signee Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. There has been plenty of speculation regarding who Jackson will face in his promotional debut later this year.

A potential boxing match against legend Roy Jones Jr. appeared to be in the forefront of the rumored options, but on Wednesday night, the former Pride veteran put all the rumors to rest by officially announcing his next fight will come against none other than Tito Ortiz on pay-per-view on November 2.

In order to make my inclusion of the announcement into this category completely clear, the reason this falls under the “bad” heading has very little to do with Jackson. While he may have ended his UFC run on a downturn, the 35-year-old Tennessee-born fighter was disgruntled with the sport’s biggest promotion and it certainly showed in his performances.

A fresh start with Bellator could serve to reignite his passion for the sport and with the promotion being thin where star power is concerned, the road is wide open for Jackson to do big things under the Bellator banner.

That being said, the story is much different where Ortiz is concerned. The recently inducted UFC “Hall of Fame” fighter has dropped six of his last seven showings going all the way back to 2007 and has been plagued by a series of injuries along the way.

Where a bout between Jackson and Ortiz could have been a big deal anywhere from 2003-2007, the bout will hold little relevance on the current landscape of mixed martial arts.

 

The Strange

Tito Ortiz is going to fight Rampage Jackson later this year, and the bout will most likely be the biggest single fight in the promotion’s history. That, my friends, is all the strange you need.

The only other tidbit to add to this category from the action on Wednesday night came from the way Jared Downing physically reacted to being knocked out by Patricio Freire. The sport of mixed martial arts has produced some brutal knockouts over the past 20 years, and those moments have provided a wide variety of reactions from those fighters unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

Some knockout victims get laid out cold on the canvas, eyes wide open and appear as if their souls have been stolen. Others produce a more mechanical reaction as they get a case of the “robot arms” once their lights have been turned out.

In Downing’s case, a pinpoint right hand from Freire separated him from his consciousness, but as soon as his stiff frame hit the canvas, his power generator immediately flipped back on. While the stoppage from the referee was absolutely just, it was interesting to see how quickly Downing recovered from eating such a monster shot from Freire. 

After eating a crusher like the one Downing absorbed, most fighters would be getting their feet lifted by the cage-side doctor. But not Downing. Moments after the fight was waved off and Freire began to celebrate, the momentarily knocked out Downing was standing there to congratulate him.

 

 

 

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The Russian Revolution will not be socialized. 

The revolution will not be retweeted. It will not go viral. It won’t be measured in followers and likes. It will not be chronicled by gossip blogs, Facebook diatribes or Controversial YouTube Interviews.

Nevertheless, somehow, some way the revolution has a foothold in MMA. A new generation of Russian fighters is on American shores and making its way up the ranks of the sport’s most high-profile promotions. These fighters mean business. All business.

They aren’t soundbite machines, but that’s OK. They’re pretty mechanized in plenty of other areas, like keeping their heads down and their noses clean, working hard, punching the head or rending the limbs off their opponents, then resuming the grind in hopes of doing it again as soon as Russianly possible.

Serious fans can recognize (if not pronounce) the names at the vanguard of this revolution. Alexander Shlemenko, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Rustam Khabilov, Andrey Koreshkov, Frodo Khasbulaev and the list goes on. Looming over it all, of course, is the most recognizable name of them all, Fedor Emelianenko, the illustrious retired heavyweight that shadows all his up-and-coming countrymen just as much as he buoys them.

But the Russian Revolution may soon bring a new name to hot lists and MMA households around the nation and world, a secret weapon calibrated to unleash a new wave of terror on the heavyweight division. The name is Vitaly Minakov.

Minakov (11-0) faces Ryan Martinez Wednesday night at Bellator 97, in the promotion’s latest heavyweight tournament final. A win will earn Minakov a shot at a championship—currently held by another impressive Russian, Alexander Volkov—in only his fourth bout in Bellator and third on U.S. soil.

The average length of his first two Bellator engagements? A little less than six minutes. Minakov settled his side of the semifinal bracket in 32 seconds.

But all the data, hair-raising as they are, don’t really encapsulate his dominance. His takedowns, trips and throws are not a bridge to offense but a violent attack in themselves, honed over years of wrestling, judo and sport sambo (in which he holds several world and Russian titles). His control grappling is superior, his transitions are smooth, his submission repertoire is aggressive and very physical.

His standup game (particularly his footwork) is still progressing, but given that his last four wins came by knockout or TKO—largely thanks to that morning star swinging from the end of his right arm—it’s clear progress is happening.

But it didn’t happen overnight. Minakov’s involvement with combat sports began nearly two decades ago in Bryansk, a steel town carved from the thick woods of Western Russia. During what he called a “normal, working-class” childhood, Vitaly played basketball and soccer, but it all hit a new level when Minakov’s father shared his hobby with his young son.

“My father brought me to one of his wrestling classes when I was 10 years old,” Minakov said through an interpreter in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “I wrestled for 12 years, and then at age 22, I started to train in sambo.”

Minakov, now 28, said he found his calling the moment he hit the mats.

“I picked my career after that first wrestling class,” Minakov said. “It’s extremely hard to say where I’d be without sports. I can’t imagine my life without them. I’d be a completely different person.”

His MMA debut came in 2010, though it wasn’t until two years later he put sambo aside and made cage fighting a full-time job. Minakov trains with several different camps, though he is most closely affiliated with Bryansk Fighters and RusFighters Professional Sport Club, for which Shlemenko is a head trainer.

“I always had the desire to do MMA. A lot of my friends were into it,” Minakov said. “I tried it and I really enjoyed it. I started to train and realized I was doing pretty well, so I switched over completely.”

“Pretty well” is one way to put it. Only one of Minakov’s pro contests went the distance. Five submission wins came by four different methods. All but one of his five knockout victories happened in the fight’s opening stanza.

The dominance is opening doors for Minakov, who spends most of his time these days in Moscow but also trains in the U.S. He said there is a fraternal feel among Russian fighters, noting particularly close relationships with Shlemenko, Bellator’s reigning middleweight champ, and Koreshkov, who fights for the welterweight belt at Bellator 97.

Minakov undoubtedly wants to follow in their footsteps. But what about the UFC, which has sometimes clashed with Russian fighters and promoters? Does he ever watch Cain Velasquez? Minakov, as he is wont to do, is polite but firm as he recites his response.

“At this moment, I have a contract with Bellator,” Minakov said. “Questions about the UFC are irrelevant. I’m a Bellator fighter. My main goal is being the Bellator heavyweight champion.”

As for that other Russian heavyweight, Minakov declines to even address questions about Emelinenko, other than to reiterate his oft-used line that he’s focused on being his own fighter.

“I’ve been asked that a million times,” Minakov said of the Fedor question. “I have some emotions, but I have no feelings I’m going to say now.”

Wednesday night, Minakov writes his next chapter. He expresses respect for Martinez, a hard-nosed, hard-fisted former high school wrestling standout and prison inmate. When discussing his approach, Minakov never abandons his humility, even as he reveals a conscious desire to finish and a supreme confidence in his grappling and the strategic flexibility it provides.

“Martinez has lots of technical knowledge about wrestling. I’ll have to be careful and smart when I fight him,” Minakov said. “I come in pretty calm, and I start with the striking. Of course I’m trying to finish the fight. But I’m not doing everything just to knock him out. I can do a takedown and go for a submission or ground-and-pound.”

To help prepare for what is certainly the biggest fight of his burgeoning career, Minakov spent time training on the U.S. West Coast. How does the higher-stakes fight and the glitz and glamour of La-La Land compare with his earlier career, and his home base in Moscow?

“I would like to note the time I spent in Orange County, California. I came here to acclimate to the time difference. The climate is great,” he said. “There are lots of places to train.”

 

The Beaten Path is an article series profiling top MMA prospects. Read the previous interview installment here. Scott Harris is a featured columnist with Bleacher Report. Find him on Twitter @ScottHarrisMMA. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

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