(“Don’t worry, Mo, we’re pretty sure your belt just got lost in the mail.”)
On the heels of his first successful title defense over Rick Hawn at Bellator 85, Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler has officially been booked to take on his next challenger at Bellator 96, which goes down from the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on June 19th.
Undefeated in his mixed martial arts career, Chandler has won eight straight fights under the Bellator banner, including victories over Akihiro Gono, Patricky Freire, and a 4th round submission over Eddie Alvarez in an absolute war back in November of 2011 that secured him the title.
Also set for the June 19th card will be a clash between former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and UFC/EliteXC veteran Seth Petruzelli that will in no way draw comparisons to Petruzelli’s infamous knockout of Kimbo Slice, we assure you (ROCKY! ROCKY IS HERE!! THE MOST INCREDIBLE…VICTORY…IN THE HISTORY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS!).
(“Don’t worry, Mo, we’re pretty sure your belt just got lost in the mail.”)
On the heels of his first successful title defense over Rick Hawn at Bellator 85, Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler has officially been booked to take on his next challenger at Bellator 96, which goes down from the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on June 19th.
Undefeated in his mixed martial arts career, Chandler has won eight straight fights under the Bellator banner, including victories over Akihiro Gono, Patricky Freire, and a 4th round submission over Eddie Alvarez in an absolute war back in November of 2011 that secured him the title.
Also set for the June 19th card will be a clash between former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and UFC/EliteXC veteran Seth Petruzelli that will in no way draw comparisons to Petruzelli’s infamous knockout of Kimbo Slice, we assure you (ROCKY! ROCKY IS HERE!! THE MOST INCREDIBLE…VICTORY…IN THE HISTORY OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS!).
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.)
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)
(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.
(“Keep laughing, Eddie, because as soon as you lose that belt, your ass is mine.”)
Former President Clinton once made infamous the phrase, “It depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’ is,” while answering questions from the Independent Counsel’s office on the all-important subject of Monica Lewinsky. With former Bellator lightweight champion/UFC hopeful Eddie Alvarez and his boss, Bjorn Rebney, the discrepancy appears to depend on what one’s definition of the word “matched” is.
It has been no secret that the UFC wants Alvarez under their banner. The top lightweight fought the last fight under his Bellator contract last October but the promotion has the right to match any contract offered to Alvarez and thus keep him with them.
The UFC did indeed recently make an offer to Alvarez, but it is here where the stories from the former champ and the Bellator CEO begin to differ.
First, Alvarez sat down with The MMA Hour and claimed that Bellator had not matched the UFC’s proposed terms. Rebney then went on MMA Weekly Radio and said that his organization had, in fact, matched the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, point for point.
And then things got really awkward.
(“Keep laughing, Eddie, because as soon as you lose that belt, your ass is mine.”)
Former President Clinton once made infamous the phrase, “It depends on what your definition of the word ’is’ is,” while answering questions from the Independent Counsel’s office on the all-important subject of Monica Lewinsky. With former Bellator lightweight champion/UFC hopeful Eddie Alvarez and his boss, Bjorn Rebney, the discrepancy appears to depend on what one’s definition of the word “matched” is.
It has been no secret that the UFC wants Alvarez under their banner. The top lightweight fought the last fight under his Bellator contract last October but the promotion has the right to match any contract offered to Alvarez and thus keep him with them.
The UFC did indeed recently make an offer to Alvarez, but it is here where the stories from the former champ and the Bellator CEO begin to differ.
First, Alvarez sat down with The MMA Hour and claimed that Bellator had not matched the UFC’s proposed terms. Rebney then went on MMA Weekly Radio and said that his organization had, in fact, matched the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, point for point.
And then things got really awkward.
“Everyone’s heard that Bellator has matched and whatnot. It’s a difficult situation,” Alvarez stated. “We went to settlement a couple days ago. We had a settlement meeting where everything was supposed to get worked out. I was sued maybe 30 minutes after that. There’s a lot of tension in the air. We don’t believe it was matched at all. I wanted to give details but I can’t because we’re in the middle of a pending lawsuit. ”
Rebney denied that Bellator did not match the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, saying, “Ed went out and got an offer from the UFC, and we took a look at that offer, reviewed it for about eight days, and decided to match it dollar for dollar,
deal point for deal point, term for term. We matched every single element of it, word for word.”
Well, Taters, I’m no lawyer and I don’t play one on TV, but it would appear that either Rebney or Alvarez are lying their asses off here. If Bellator actually copied and pasted the UFC’s offer to Alvarez, we’re not sure how Alvarez could reasonably not see that Bellator had matched the UFC’s contract [Ed note: Based on what I’ve read, it appears that the biggest discrepancy seems to be in the PPV figures Alvarez was offered by both parties. Whereas the UFC, you know, actually hosts PPV’s which Alvarez could cash in on, Bellator’s PPV proposal seems more hypothetical than anything. -Danga]. The only good thing that could come from Bellator suing Alvarez is that the contract offers may very well become public information before a court and it might become plain to see who is in the right.
With Rebney and Bellator’s penchant for playing tough with free-agent fighters and then playing it loose and fast with the facts in the media [Ed note: For examples of this, see Tyson Namand Jay Hieron], Alvarez might be the safer bet to side with for now. One thing is certain, Michael Chandler has to be wondering what he has to do to get his own bidding war between Bellator and the UFC.
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.
Although most of us were too busy watching the resurgence of one Georges St. Pierre last weekend to even realize that a Bellator event was happening, well, a Bellator event totally happened last weekend. In the evening’s main event, UFC veteran Rich Clementi squared off against rising prospect Marcin Held in the lightweight tournament semifinals.
The match was rife with the kind of grappling exchanges that could make a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fan out of Seth Davis (although ironically, the amount of heel hook attempts alone in this fight would have given Rousimar Palhares an erection so strong that he would have had to hate-fuck your Mom’s cankles like a dog in heat to quell it), but it was the finishing toe hold that really caught people’s attention. It was undoubtedly the most effective use of the technique we’ve seen since Frank Mir fought Tank Abbott, so check it out before it gets taken down.
With his fifth straight win (fourth in Bellator) under his belt, Held will now face Dave Jansen for the right to meet lightweight champ Michael Chandler — who defeated Held by arm-triangle in Held’s Bellator debut — next.
After the jump: A gif of yet another Bellator referee sleeping on the job and allowing a fighter to absorb way more punishment than necessary, because that’s kind of their thing these days.
Although most of us were too busy watching the resurgence of one Georges St. Pierre last weekend to even realize that a Bellator event was happening, well, a Bellator event totally happened last weekend. In the evening’s main event, UFC veteran Rich Clementi squared off against rising prospect Marcin Held in the lightweight tournament semifinals.
The match was rife with the kind of grappling exchanges that could make a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fan out of Seth Davis (although ironically, the amount of heel hook attempts alone in this fight would have given Rousimar Palhares an erection so strong that he would have had to hate-fuck your Mom’s cankles like a dog in heat to quell it), but it was the finishing toe hold that really caught people’s attention. It was undoubtedly the most effective use of the technique we’ve seen since Frank Mir fought Tank Abbott, so check it out before it gets taken down.
With his fifth straight win (fourth in Bellator) under his belt, Held will now face Dave Jansen for the right to meet lightweight champ Michael Chandler — who defeated Held by arm-triangle in Held’s Bellator debut — next.
After the jump: A gif of yet another Bellator referee sleeping on the job and allowing a fighter to absorb way more punishment than necessary, because that’s kind of their thing these days.
Taken from the Brennan Ward vs. Sam McCoy undercard bout, witness yet another case – albeit far less brutal – of a referee jumping in dangerously late after a fighter has clearly been knocked the fuck out. We’ll give ref Todd Anderson a little leeway for the somewhat unexpected manner in which McCoy was knocked out in the first place, but suffice it to say, when a fighter can take another fighter’s back and start reigning down punches with no resistance whatsoever, it might be time to step in. A note to all future referees: Plankingis not a legitimate form of self-defense unless you are fighting a bear. I’m glad I could clear that up for you.
The full results for Bellator 81 are below.
Main Card: -Marcin Held def. Rich Clementi by Submission (Toe Hold) at 3:04, R2
-Dave Jansen def. Ricardo Tirloni by Split Decision, R3
-Marlon Sandro def. Dustin Neace by Technical Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 2:05, R1
-Perry Filkins def. Jonas Billstein by Unanimous Decision, R3
Preliminary Card: -Ruben Rey def. Robbie LeRoux by Unanimous Decision, R3 –Andrew Calandrelli def. Eric Brown by Submission (Armbar) at 3:10, R2
-Dan Cramer def. Joe Lamoureux by KO (Punches) at 3:26, R1
-Murad Machaev def. Lorawnt-T Nelson by Unanimous Decision, R3
-Mike Mucitelli def. Matt Uhde by Submission (Armbar) at 0:26, R1
-Brennan Ward def. Sam McCoy by KO (Punches) at 2:49, R1
-Matt Bessette def. Paul Barrow by Unanimous Decision, R3
