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Bellator 96 Announces King Mo vs. Seth Petruzelli; Babalu and War Machine Too

Seven weeks outside of the return of Bellator MMA, popular light heavyweight Mohammed Lawal has announced his opponent for Bellator 96 along with a poster for the event which shares the rest of the main card matchups.Standing across the cage from Lawal…

Standing across the cage from Lawal will be none other than Seth Petruzelli. “The Silverback” is a veteran of the Ultimate Fighter reality program and competed four times in the Octagon. However, the former heavyweight is best known as being the man who infamously knocked out Kimbo Slice and for giving a post-fight interview that led to the collapse of Elite XC.

Lawal will be competing for the first time since being stunned in the Season 7 tournament by Emanuel Newton. After picking apart Newton in the opening minutes of the fight, King Mo was caught with a spinning back fist that turned off his lights. It marked the second loss of Lawal’s professional career.

With the Season 8 tournament switching to a four-man bracket, we now know that the winner of Lawal vs. Petruzelli will square off against the winner of a battle between Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Jacob Noe, who will compete against one another earlier on the same card.

Also announced was a welterweight scrap between the always controversial War Machine and jiu-jitsu practitioner Blas Avena.

War Machine was released from the UFC after the The Ultimate Fighter alum made statements about the death of Evan Tanner, in which he claimed that the former champion had committed suicide and that his death was no accident.

Bellator 96 is headlined by a battle for the Bellator lightweight championship between undefeated Michael Chandler and challenger Dave Jansen, who is fresh off of his Season 7 tournament win.

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Bellator 90: Mo Lawal Knocked Out in First Round by Emanuel Newton

Tonight’s Bellator event saw the two light heavyweight tournament semifinal bouts, including Jacob Noe vs. Mikhail Zayats and “King” Mo Lawal vs. Emanuel Newton. In the first bout of the main card, Mikhail Zayats landed a heavy hand to rock…

Tonight’s Bellator event saw the two light heavyweight tournament semifinal bouts, including Jacob Noe vs. Mikhail Zayats and “King” Mo Lawal vs. Emanuel Newton.

In the first bout of the main card, Mikhail Zayats landed a heavy hand to rock Jacob Noe early on, letting him slip into top position quickly. After some ground-and-pound, he got hold of Noe’s arm, barred it and forced a tap at 3:38 of the first round.

When Lawal and Newton squared off, Lawal showed off the same confident striking he did in his Bellator debut against Przemyslaw Mysiala. Some, though, would say he was overly confident.

After out-landing Newton for the first few minutes of the fight, the underdog planted and caught Lawal with a full-power backfist clean to the teeth, right as Lawal dropped his front hand. Lawal stiffened on the spot and fell to the ground rigid.

This is one of the biggest upsets fans have seen in recent years. This writer actually stated, “many are expecting him to cruise effortlessly to the Bellator belt” and was squarely among that lot.

Lawal is a former world-class wrestler and came just short of qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Games. He used those skills to ground-and-pound his way to the Strikeforce belt, beating out Gegard Mousasi in 2010. He would lose the belt to Rafael Cavalcante, but still ranked among the best light heavyweights in MMA.

Newton will face off with Zayats at a later Bellator event, which will determine the next contender for the light heavyweight belt. Current champion Christian M’Pumbu will face off with 2012 Summer Series winner Attila Vegh next week at Bellator 91.

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King Mo Lawal: Bellator Is a True Sport, UFC Is More About Spectacle

When former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator Fighting Championships, many wondered if he would be willing to go through one of the company’s tournaments to earn a shot at the title …

See, Lawal is one of the biggest free agent signings Bellator has made, so with his star power and charisma it would be easy to put him in against the champion or make him a part of super fights as soon as he joined the company.

The danger of the Bellator tournament is that a fighter truly has to earn their way to a title shot, and as shown in evidence in the past with another high profile free agent signing, just because someone has a bigger name doesn’t mean they will win.

Former UFC fighter and Sports Illustrated poster boy Roger Huerta signed with Bellator a few years back and was immediately seen as a big land for the fledgling MMA promotion. Huerta didn’t get any gifted fights however, entered the tournament and lost in the 2^nd round to Pat Curran in a closely contested lightweight contest.

Like Huerta, Lawal wanted no special treatment just because his name was more recognizable than an opponent’s might be. The former college wrestler knows what it means to earn it, and that’s exactly what he plans to do as he enters his second round matchup against Emanuel Newton.

“I had no problem with that. Just because I’m known more than the other fighters doesn’t mean I deserve an immediate title shot right away,” Lawal told Bleacher Report in an exclusive interview. “It’s not easy. A lot of people can’t do that.”

Since he started fighting MMA, Lawal has seen the politics of fighting first hand and how sometimes it’s more about selling a fight than actually deserving it.

He says that’s the cardinal difference between what Bellator is doing with their tournament format than say the UFC where there is no prime directive in how title matches are put together.

“It makes it a true sport. I think the difference between Bellator and the UFC is that the UFC’s more about the spectacle and more about flare. Where as Bellator it really is a true sport. Every true sport has a title format. The Olympics have a title format. The NBA playoffs, the NFL playoffs, hockey, baseball, all that,” Lawal stated.

“They all have a tournament format of some sort. I think that’s better cause when you win you know where you’re going.”

As MMA strives to be put in the same sentence as other major sports like football and basketball, Lawal believes it really has to come down to the two best fighters that earned their opportunities.

In a perfect world, Major League Baseball would put the New York Yankees, the largest draw in the sport, in the World Series every year, but it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes they get beat and another team earns their shot and yes, ratings on television may fluctuate, but it’s only about putting the best two teams head-to-head for the championship.

Lawal believes it should be no different in MMA.

“The thing is the UFC is doing it that way, Bellator‘s going to do it the other way. I think when you win the belt, you win the tournament, you win the championship in Bellator, you know you’re the best. You know you won the tournament, you won the field that you’re in and you beat the champ or defended the belt. You’re the best,” said Lawal. “That’s one thing that I respect, I enjoy that.”

Lawal will look to move to 2-0 in Bellator on Thursday night as part of the Bellator 90 card that airs on Spike TV Thursday night at 10pm ET from the Maverick Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. With a win, Lawal would move into the finals of the light heavyweight tournament and take one more step towards his ultimate goal of becoming Bellator champion.

Damon Martin is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained first hand unless otherwise noted.

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25 Best Fighters Outside the UFC

UFC parent-company Zuffa has made it a practice of purchasing any promotion to hold a noteworthy roster of fighters. Over the years Zuffa’s purchased and collapsed some powerhouse promotions in Pride Fighting Championships and the World Extreme C…

While they don’t appear poised to stop the run of Bellator anytime soon, they’re already eyeing some of the promotion’s top talent.

But as powerful as Zuffa may be, there will always be other existing promotions, and if they aim to exist for any significant period of time, they’ve likely signed a few recognizable names and upper-echelon talents.

Believe it or not, the UFC isn’t host to every elite fighter in the business. Here and there you’ll find a memorable prospect or seasoned veteran of high regard competing in smaller shows. This is a look at 25 of the best combatants still waging war beneath a banner that reads something other than ‘UFC.’

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Bellator Fighting Championships Continue Growth for Fighters, Company

If there was any comparison in last night’s Bellator Fighting Championships to the company’s explosion onto the scene it was probably King Mo’s first round knockout. Jab, jab, jab…knockout. That’s essentially what the Ne…

If there was any comparison in last night’s Bellator Fighting Championships to the company’s explosion onto the scene it was probably King Mo’s first round knockout.

Jab, jab, jab…knockout. That’s essentially what the Newport Beach based company has done over the last few years as they have grown and got their knockout in the ratings surging on Spike.

Bellator has become a legitimate contender to grow MMA and possibly take some of the UFC’s market share while developing fighters of the future. The debut event and subsequent follow up on Spike has given Bellator its biggest audience in the company’s three-year history and created buzz across the sport of MMA.

And seemingly, they are doing it the right way.

Other organizations have stepped up and tried to go blow-for-blow with Dana White and the UFC. Bellator, on the other hand, has continued to build its brand with great fights, good production value and tournaments that help to grow an audience slowly over time.

Last night was a well-produced television broadcast and the most popular Bellator fighter. King Mo, came away with a win and that’s definitely good for business.

The smartest thing the company is doing is trying not to fool MMA fans into thinking their product is better than the UFC. Rather, it’s different and allows fans to track the entire league week to week for free.

The inability to throw elbows in the tournament actually helps the company and its young fighters. There is less laying and clinching in fights that go to the ground, which makes for better TV. Fighters are forced to throw punches, kicks or have to stand up if they lack ground skill.

But when a championship fight comes, you had better make sure you know how to throw or defend them, or else you will end up like Karl Amoussou at Bellator 86, eating Ben Askren elbows and fists all night.

Bellator has momentum and the worst thing they can do right now is lose focus on the game plan. Their product is good and they don’t need to make any crazy changes. They just need to keep putting on great fights that entertain the Spike television audience and their company will grow just like it has since its inception, slowly but surely.

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Bellator 86 Results: King Mo and the Real Winners and Losers

Almost a million people watched Bellator’s Spike TV debut last week, a card with two title fights and some serious action. Fans who stuck with it got a heck of a show.How could the promotion possibly equal that introduction?To give it a shot, they enli…

Almost a million people watched Bellator‘s Spike TV debut last week, a card with two title fights and some serious action. Fans who stuck with it got a heck of a show.

How could the promotion possibly equal that introduction?

To give it a shot, they enlisted their big gun free agent, former wrestling champion “King” Mo Lawal, who made his Bellator debut as part of the light heavyweight tournament and made his unknown opponent look like a chump as expected.

The welterweights were also on display, with Douglas Lima and Ben Saunders advancing in the latest tournament and champion Ben Askren looking better than ever in his title defense over Karl Amoussou.

That, of course, isn’t the the entire story. In mixed martial arts, unlike traditional ball and stick sports, winning and losing is often a little gray. A fighter can win on paper, but lose respect by fighting in a boring fashion. Likewise, a loser can walk away with his head held high if he gives it his all and shows fire and fighting spirit.

So who were the real winners and losers tonight on Spike? Click on to find out.

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