The new Bellator Featherweight champion will have to wait a bit longer to defend his belt. Pat Curran has been forced out of his match up against Patricio Freire at Bellator 73 due to an injury.MMAWeekly is reporting that Curran suffered a broken orbit…
The new Bellator Featherweight champion will have to wait a bit longer to defend his belt. Pat Curran has been forced out of his match up against Patricio Freire at Bellator 73 due to an injury.
MMAWeekly is reporting that Curran suffered a broken orbital bone during a sparring session. The injury is likely to sideline Curran for at least a couple months.
MMAWeekly, along with an ESPN report, said that Bellator will now bump up the bantamweight tournament finals featuring Marcos Galvao vs. Luis Nogueira to main event status.
When Curran returns, he will have a couple of hungry title challengers awaiting him. Freire has been waiting to get his title shot after winning a featherweight tournament and Daniel Straus also won a Bellator tournament to earn a title fight.
However, it seems Bellator’s Bjorn Rebney is already set on having Curran face Freire when the champion is healthy:
“Right now the focus is Pat healing and getting back to 100 percent and we will get that fight rescheduled as quickly as Pat’s health will allow us to,” Rebney said (via ESPN).
(Props: Amazon.com, via CP reader “joe sons balls,” who claims that he randomly came upon one of Phil Baroni‘s old fetish-modeling gigs while searching for XTC t-shirts. Sure, buddy. Your secret’s safe with us.)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere…
(Props: Amazon.com, via CP reader “joe sons balls,” who claims that he randomly came upon one of Phil Baroni‘s old fetish-modeling gigs while searching for XTC t-shirts. Sure, buddy. Your secret’s safe with us.)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere…
Two tournament titles and the Bellator featherweight championship: that’s quite the impressive resume for newly crowned champion Pat Curran.
What makes these accolades even more impressive is the fact that he’s only 24 years old.
After running ragged …
Two tournament titles and the Bellator featherweight championship: that’s quite the impressive resume for newly crowned champion Pat Curran.
What makes these accolades even more impressive is the fact that he’s only 24 years old.
After running ragged through the Bellator Season Two Lightweight Tournament, Curran fell short against top-ranked Eddie Alvarez in his first quest for a belt. That decision loss prompted Curran to drop to the featherweight division, and he hasn’t looked back.
Curran topped a number of big names as he captured the 145-pound Bellator Summer Series Tournament crown, including former Sengoku champion Marlon Sandro and well-rounded Brit Ronnie Mann.
But he wasn’t done there.
Utilizing his size advantage and his ever-evolving striking attack, Curran refused to succumb to Joe Warren’s Olympic-level wrestling in their title tilt. Following a pair of closely-contested rounds, Curran unloaded on Warren and scored a devastating third-round knockout to claim Bellator gold.
Having accomplished so much so quickly, the question must be posed: where does Curran go from here?
The answer is nowhere. Curran will be the new poster boy of the promotion with Bellator’s ironclad contracts preventing him from signing with the UFC.
His first defense will come against Brazilian Patricio “Pitbull” Freire, another featherweight tournament winner. However, should he get past that challenge, few remain for him outside of the UFC.
Curran’s mix of solid grappling, scrambling ability and powerful striking make him a dangerous opponent for anyone. Now he’ll have to get used to having a target on his back.
In today’s UFC Morning Update, I shared the video of the horrific beating that Joe Warren took at the hands of Pat Curran at Friday night’s Bellator 60 card. In reality, the beating wasn’t just issued by Curran, but also by referee Jeff Malott, who sho…
In today’s UFC Morning Update, I shared the video of the horrific beating that Joe Warren took at the hands of Pat Curran at Friday night’s Bellator 60 card. In reality, the beating wasn’t just issued by Curran, but also by referee Jeff Malott, who should be reprimanded and stripped of his license, never to referee another professional fight again.
I did not get a chance to see the Curran/Warren fight the other night because they were on right before me, but Warren did not look in good shape at all backstage after the fight. I’m not one to have my stomach easily turned either, but I was genuinely afraid for him when he passed by as they were practically carrying him. I keep hearing it was a late stoppage, and then that it wasn’t, back and forth. Either way, I genuinely hope that he is OK. That’s a scary thing to see.
It’s not a stretch to say that Warren’s career may have been prematurely ended by an incompetent referee on Friday night. I don’t have any kind of confirmation on Warren’s current condition, but I know he’s out of the hospital.
He almost certainly suffered at least one concussion and possibly two, and that’s the kind of thing that will make a 35 year old man think long and hard before stepping back in the cage for a fight.
It’s that time once again: Another major MMA event has come and gone, and it’s time for my unofficial “Best Performance of the Night” award.Bellator 60 had a slew of good performances from many of Bellator’s top featherwei…
It’s that time once again: Another major MMA event has come and gone, and it’s time for my unofficial “Best Performance of the Night” award.
Bellator 60 had a slew of good performances from many of Bellator’s top featherweights in the opening round of Bellator’s Season 6 Featherweight Tournament. But the main event of Bellator 60 featured one of those “Bellator moments” that Bellator fans love to talk about.
Here’s why Pat Curran’s brutal and beautiful KO win over Joe Warren took home “Best Performance of the Night.”
Let’s begin as we always do, fans and friends: by putting the situation into context.
Coming into this fight, Warren was still Bellator’s featherweight champion despite coming off of a KO loss. That loss came to Alexis Vila (who eventually fought to the finals of that tournament) in the opening round of Bellator’s Season 5 Bantamweight Tournament. Before the tournament, Warren made the bold claim that he would become the first man in Bellator history to ever hold two championships.
That is not what happened.
Indeed, Vila’s KO’ing of Warren will probably hold a permanent spot on Vila’s highlight reel. Ironically, Warren only grew cockier following the most humbling and high-profile loss of his career. He virtually cast aside his opponent, Curran, in the build-up to Bellator 60.
Curran, meanwhile, spent much of 2010 and 2011 rising from relative obscurity to become one of Bellator’s biggest stars. It all started with a run at lightweight that saw Curran beat former UFC star Roger Huerta and Bellator star Toby Imada.
Curran came up short in his shot at Bellator lightweight gold, losing to then-champion Eddie Alvarez by unanimous decision, but he immediately rebounded by fighting in and winning Bellator’s “Summer Series” Featherweight Tournament, winning two of his three tournament fights by highlight-reel stoppage.
If you don’t know how the Curran vs. Warren fight turned out, do yourself a favor and find a .gif of the final moments or, even better, the full video of the fight. Curran more or less controlled Warren and picked him apart, waiting for the optimal opportunity to begin a fight-ending barrage.
That fight-ending barrage eventually came in the form of an epic beatdown consisting of knees, hooks and uppercuts as Warren put up next-to-no defense.
Was it a late stoppage? I’m just about certain that it was. Warren was eating a tremendous amount of shots, and to be completely honest, the only thing holding him up was the cage.
Even one of the Bellator announcers pointed this out. When Curran landed some final uppercuts and legitimately KO’d Warren, the fight should’ve realistically been over at least 10 seconds beforehand.
But let’s not dwell on that because it diminishes an amazing performance. Curran did what he had to do to get the win, and you know what he did?
He gave us the greatest performance of his young career, and he sent a firm message both during the fight and in his post-fight interview: This is only the beginning.
And you know what? I believe the man. With this victory, and with all his other performances in Bellator, I think at this point you have absolutely got to consider Curran one of the top 10 featherweights in the world.
I even think you can consider him the best lighter-weight fighter currently competing outside of the UFC, period. Because he realized his full potential by putting on one of the most brilliant and dominant performances I’ve seen from a lighter-weight fighter in quite some time, Curran definitely takes my “Best Performance of the Night” award for Bellator 60.
Oliver Saenz, also known as PdW2kX, is a freelance journalist, opinion columnist, hardcore MMA fan and lifelong video-game nerd. For more news, views, previews and reviews on all things mixed martial arts as well as video games, be sure to visit FightGamesBlog.net.
In terms of a season-opener, you couldn’t ask much more from Bellator 60. We had entertaining fights featuring some of Bellator’s best lighter-weight stars, and the cherry on top was Pat Curran’s KTFO’ing of Joe Warren to win Be…
In terms of a season-opener, you couldn’t ask much more from Bellator 60. We had entertaining fights featuring some of Bellator’s best lighter-weight stars, and the cherry on top was Pat Curran’s KTFO’ing of Joe Warren to win Bellator’s Featherweight Championship.
But which stars shined brightest, and what moments will fans be talking about in the following weeks? Here’s my take on the matter: my top five best moments of Bellator 60.
5. Welcome Back, Bellator!
It’s become a bit of a tradition to do a “welcome back, Bellator” bit when I do a “Top 5” post on whichever Bellator event starts the season. The gist is simple: Whenever I watch a new Bellator season, it immediately makes me remember how much I’ve missed this promotion. It’s one thing to host a series of live MMA shows every week for a few months straight. That’s impressive, for sure, but it’s nothing if the fights don’t deliver.
But in Bellator, the fights do deliver, and they deliver a bigger bang for your buck than virtually any other promotion.
Bellator may still be No. 3 in the grand scheme of MMA promotions, but it’s a promotion with a look, feel and soul of its own that has carved out an impressive niche amongst hardcore fans and fans of highlight reel moments. I’m more than happy to consider myself a hardcore Bellator fan.
4. I Now Know Who Mike Corey Is
I won’t lie: I really wanted Ronnie Mann to win this fight. If he had, I think Bellator would’ve made the smart move and made Ronnie Mann vs. Marlon Sandro a reality. That fight would’ve been a pretty epic stand-up war.
But alas, it was not to be. I can’t blame Mike Corey for that, though. Mike Corey is still the dark horse of this tournament, but I now know he’s got very good wrestling and takedown ability. The man that holds the No. 3 spot on this list was in the exact same position when he entered Bellator as an unknown, and now he’s one of my favorite Bellator fighters. I’ll be paying close attention to Mike Corey.
3. Daniel Straus May Be the Best Lighter-Weight Wrestler in Bellator
Every time I see Daniel Straus, I notice improvements. Maybe it’s the way his stand-up has changed bit by bit to the point where he’s more or less holding his own against anyone. Maybe it’s the way he constantly fights to get out of guard so he can posture up and throw some serious hurt.
Straus hasn’t made a giant leap in any one area since debuting in Bellator, but to be honest, he was already pretty good to begin with, as evidenced by his fighting to the finals of Season 4.
It’s been a joy to watch Daniel Straus perform in Bellator, and I’ll continue to watch and cheer for him.
2. Marlon Sandro’s Performance Was One of the Best He’s Ever Put in under the Bellator Banner
I don’t know enough about Roberto Vargas to have an opinion on him, but from what I saw, it was clearly evident that Sandro was many, many levels above him.
What’s so important to note about this fight was that Sandro dominated his opponent no matter where the fight went. After a performance like that, it’s obvious that Sandro is a heavy favorite to fight to the finals and maybe even win it all.
And my personal pick for the best moment of Bellator 60 is…
1. Pat Curran KO’ing Joe Warren
I say this without hyperbole: It’s fights like this that both remind me of why I’m an MMA fan and make me proud to be an MMA fan.
It’s possible, even probable, that this fight wasn’t called off quickly enough and Warren took a lot of unneeded punishment. But it’s the story and the culmination of that story that made me literally jump out of my seat and cheer: the eager young upstart who rose from obscurity versus the cocky veteran who considers himself the “baddest man on the planet.”
It was an amazing victory and an amazing moment, and I think Curran winning the Bellator Featherweight Championship is officially the benchmark for Bellator’s sixth season in terms of highlight reel moments.
Oliver Saenz, also known as PdW2kX, is a freelance journalist, opinion columnist, hardcore MMA fan and lifelong video game nerd. For more news, views, previews and reviews on all things Mixed Martial Arts, as well as video games, be sure to visit FightGamesBlog.net.
The new Bellator Featherweight champion will have to wait a bit longer to defend his belt. Pat Curran has been forced out of his match up against Patricio Freire at Bellator 73 due to an injury.