Tag: Emily Ducote

Bellator Will Crown Women’s Flyweight Champ Before UFC

Bellator MMA has added another fight to the upcoming Bellator 186 card and it’s a historic one. The promotion will crown its first female 125-pound champion at the event. On Tuesday, Bellator President Scott Coker told ESPN.com that Ilima Macfarlane (6-0) is slated to take on Emily Ducote (6-2) at the event. This will be […]

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Bellator MMA has added another fight to the upcoming Bellator 186 card and it’s a historic one. The promotion will crown its first female 125-pound champion at the event.

On Tuesday, Bellator President Scott Coker told ESPN.com that Ilima Macfarlane (6-0) is slated to take on Emily Ducote (6-2) at the event. This will be a rematch of their December 2016 bout at Bellator 167. Macfarlane won the duo’s first meeting via unanimous decision.

Macfarlane has fought once since that win. Back in April at Bellator 178, she submitted Jessica Middleton via first-round armbar. This marked her sixth straight victory and fifth career stoppage. Following the loss to Macfarlane, Ducote has fought twice for Bellator. 

Bellator’s rival, the UFC, will crown its own 125-pound female champion in December with the conclusion of The Ultimate Fighter 26. The reality show will determine the inaugural champion of the UFC’s newest female weight class by way of a tournament.

Bellator 186 is slated to take place on November 3rd at Bryce Jordan Center on Penn State’s campus in University Park, Pa. The preliminary card will air online while the main card will air on Spike TV. Ryan Bader vs. Linton Vassell for a light heavyweight title will serve as the main event. Although the fight card has yet to be finalized, here is the updated lineup:

Ryan Bader © vs. Linton Vassell – for light heavyweight title
Emily Ducote vs. Ilima MacFarlane – for inaugural women’s flyweight title
Phil Davis vs. TBA
Ed Ruth vs. TBA
Saad Awad vs. Zach Freeman

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Emily Ducote Wants to be Superior to Jessica Middleton in All Areas

Emily Ducote is preparing to battle late replacement Jessica Middleton this Friday night (July 14). Ducote and Middleton will compete on the Bellator 181 card. “Gordinha” was originally scheduled to face Valerie Letourneau. MMA Weekly recently interviewed Ducote before her upcoming bout. She described her training camp and why she’s confident in her diversity: “I […]

Emily Ducote is preparing to battle late replacement Jessica Middleton this Friday night (July 14). Ducote and Middleton will compete on the Bellator 181 card. “Gordinha” was originally scheduled to face Valerie Letourneau. MMA Weekly recently interviewed Ducote before her upcoming bout. She described her training camp and why she’s confident in her diversity: “I […]

Valerie Letourneau Makes Promotional Debut At Bellator 181

Former UFC title challenger Valerie Letourneau has agreed to a date and an opponent for her Bellator MMA debut. Letourneau, who signed with the promotion last month, is scheduled to fight Emily Ducote in a women’s flyweight bout at Bellator 181. She announced the news during Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. Letourneau departed ways

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Former UFC title challenger Valerie Letourneau has agreed to a date and an opponent for her Bellator MMA debut. Letourneau, who signed with the promotion last month, is scheduled to fight Emily Ducote in a women’s flyweight bout at Bellator 181. She announced the news during Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

Letourneau departed ways with the UFC earlier this year after she suffered her third consecutive loss in a split decision to Viviane Pereira at UFC 206 in December. The departure was mutual between the two sides. She had her issues with making weight for the strawweight division. The UFC has made it clear that it has no intention to add a 125-pound division in the near future. She began her UFC career at bantamweight with a split-decision win over Elizabeth Phillips at UFC 174 in June 2014. She then cut down to strawweight and at first, her decision to do so paid off in a big way. She received a title shot at UFC 193 in November 2015 against undefeated strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk. However, the fight did not go the way she wanted. Letourneau hung tough for five rounds en route to a unanimous decision loss. The UFC allowed her to have a one-off fight at strawweight as she fought Joanne Calderwood at UFC Fight Night 89 this past June, but she suffered a third-round TKO defeat. She then had to move back down to strawweight for the bout with Pereira. But she failed to make weight, prompting her to decide that cutting such a significant amount of weight was no longer an option.

On the other side, Ducote is coming off a submission win over Katy Collins back at Bellator 174 in March. She holds a 5-2 record and is 3-1 under the Bellator banner.

Bellator 181 takes place on Friday, July 14th at the WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Patricky “Pitbull” Freire (17-8) vs. Derek Campos (18-6) in a lightweight bout will headline this event. The prelims will stream on Bellator.com and the Bellator Mobile App while the main card will air live and free on Spike at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT. Additional main and preliminary card bouts will be announced in the coming weeks.

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