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Four Reasons Why You Should Watch Bellator’s Spike TV Debut Tonight

(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)

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.

Bellator Confirms Stacked Lineup for Jan. 17 Spike TV Premiere, Debut Date for King Mo and ‘Babalu’

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.

– The postponed Season 7 featherweight tournament final between Rad Martinez and Shahbulat Shamhalaev will happen sometime in Season 8, since Martinez has to take care of his father this weekend. (You can learn more about that here, if you want to feel sad for the rest of the day.)

Renato “Babalu” Sobral Inks Deal with Bellator, Will Compete in Season Eight Tournament

Bjorn, You fool! Never give this man such easy access to your neck!

Even though Bellator hasn’t been giving us our weekly Friday night events over the summer, the promotion still managed to give us some big news last night. Yesterday, while you were preparing for dude’s night out, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney took to his Twitter page to announce that the promotion had come to terms with former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Along with the above image, Bjorn Rebney tweeted “Great news. Babalu now in the Bellator family. He’ll compete in our 205 tourney on Spike in January. Can’t wait.”

A fourteen year veteran of our sport, “Babalu” holds notable victories over Shogun Rua, Jeremy Horn, Chael Sonnen and current Bellator light-heavyweight Travis Wiuff. Given Wiuff’s current run in the promotion, there’s a very good chance that we’ll see these two fighting for the Bellator Light-Heavyweight title if they were to meet up again. Sobral’s most recent fight was a thirty one second armbar victory over Tatsuya Mizuno at ONE FC 4 in June. He was initially scheduled to fight at ONE FC’s August 31 show in Manila, Philippines, although an opponent had never been named.

Bjorn, You fool! Never give this man such easy access to your neck!

The signing doesn’t come without a caveat though. Babalu has a history of fighting dirty – the most notable example of this being his refusal to let go of an anaconda choke after his opponent, David Heath, tapped at UFC 74, which got him fired from the promotion. But considering Bellator’s acquisition of other noted rule breakers, such as King Mo and Brett Rogers, the promotion has demonstrated a willingness to take chances on fighters before.

Given Bellator’s recent signings of Travis Wiuff, King Mo and now Renato Sobral, their light-heavyweight division has become surprisingly competitive – especially considering how depleted the UFC’s light-heavyweight division currently is (although, to be fair, a champion as dominant as Jon Jones will clean out any division). The only question now is whether or not the ratings will reflect this. So you tell us, Bellator Season Eight: You excited for it or not?

@SethFalvo

One FC Set to Rock Manila with Biggest MMA Show the Philippines Has Ever Seen

The Philippines is home to more MMA fans than any other country in Asia, apart from Japan, and why the UFC decided to go to Macau first is a mystery. Fortunately for the Filipino MMA fans, ONE FC has stepped in to fill the breach with the biggest and b…

ONE FC “Destiny of Warriors” is going down on August 31st and anyone who is suffering from UFC overload after the crazy recent schedule of mediocre cards should check it out because it has got some of the top fighters from Asia, Australia and South America.

Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki, who has been the top pound-for-pound fighter in Asia for as long as I can remember, is still waiting for an opponent, as is former Strikeforce middleweight champion and UFC veteran Renato Sobral.

Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski knows who he will be fighting, top Australian heavyweight Soa Palelei who has won his last seven fights. Arlovski has won his last two fights but Palelei is a top quality fighter and this will not be an easy fight for ‘The Pitbull’.

Dream bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes has also been handed a very difficult ONE FC debut against CFC bantamweight champion Gustavo Falciroli. The Brazilian born fighter was selected to appear on TUF: ‘The Smashes’ as a lightweight but didn’t get his Australian citizenship through in time and is much bigger than Fernandes, who was last seen winning the Dream bantamweight grand prix on new year’s eve.

The fourth Australian (if you count Falciroli) on the card is 16-1 heavyweight Tony Bonello who is taking on Rolles Gracie. There are three Gracies on the card which must be some sort of record, and none of them have been given easy fights.

Gregor Gracie goes up against Nicholas Mann, an Australian who lives in the Philippines and has a 4-1 record while Igor Gracie has been matched with 8-6 Korean Jung Hwan Cha. Mann is the URCC light heavyweight champion and his fight with Gracie fight is taking place at a catchweight of 80 kgs.

ONE FC “Destiny of Warriors” will have three Filipino fighters but only one of them has an opponent and that is Eric Kelly who will be going up against former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver. Kelly is 7-0 and is URCC featherweight champion and Pulver has been doing better lately after some bad results.

There will be two more URCC champions on the card and both are still waiting for opponents. URCC flyweight champion Kevin Belingon suffered the first loss of his career against Masakazu Imanari but is still 9-1 and Eduard Folayang is the most famous MMA fighter in the Philippines but is also coming off a loss to Ole Laursen which saw his record slip to 11-2

Phil Baroni might be in his twilight years but he still knows how to sell a fight and will be desperate for a win when he takes on BJJ black belt Rodrigo Ribeiro. These two trained together at Evolve MMA in Singapore apparently and this promises to be a straightforward striker vs grappler match.

With Babalu, Aoki, Arlovski, Fernandes and three Gracies this could be the best non UFC card ever to take place outside of Japan. It’s taking place at the same arena as the Thriller in Manila and ONE FC confidently predict a 16,500 sell out, MMA in the US might be starting to get stale due to saturation but in Asia, fans still can’t get enough.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

ONE FC Reportedly Signs Shinya Aoki and…Bibiano Fernandes? Wait, WHAT?!

Pictured: The closest Fernandes has come to landing a punch in the UFC.

After an astonishing 0-0 run in the UFC, it looks like Bibiano Fernandes already has a new home.

It’s being reported by MMAFighting.com that the former DREAM bantamweight champion has inked a deal with ONE FC and is set to make his promotional debut at an August 31 show in Manila, Philippines. An opponent has not been specified at this time.

Pictured: The closest Fernandes has come to landing a punch in the UFC.

After an astonishing 0-0 run in the UFC, it looks like Bibiano Fernandes already has a new home.

For those of you keeping score, Bibiano Fernandes was initially set to make his UFC debut against Roland Delorme at UFC 149. However, after an injury sidelined Fernandes, Bibiano claimed to have never inked a deal with the UFC in the first place. In other words, we might not want to put too much stock in this signing until we actually see him in the cage on August 31.

Fernandes isn’t the only staple of the Japanese MMA scene to sign on with ONE FC. The promotion is also rumored to have signed former DREAM lightweight champion Shinya Aoki, who will also be making his promotional debut on this card. At this point, if DREAM isn’t actually dead, it might as well be.

Barring an injury curse the likes of which we haven’t seen since UFC 149, ONE FC’s Manila card is shaping up to be one hell of a follow-up to last weekend’s already entertaining efforts. Aside from the promotional debuts of Fernandes and Aoki, Renato “Babalu” Sobral is also scheduled to appear on this card.

We’ll keep you up to date as more information becomes available about this card.

[VIDEO] ONE FC 4: Destiny of Warriors Main Card, in Its Entirety

It may have been merely a footnote to most fans in an already sub-par chapter of MMA events, but this weekend’s ONE FC 4 gave fans a quick fix for soccer kicks, quick stoppages and some lesser-known talent making names for themselves.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about the names you’re already familiar with. Roger Huerta took to the cage at welterweight looking to rebound from an ugly TKO at the hands of War Machine. His initial opponent, Phil Baroni, was forced off of the card due to an ugly knockout loss at the hands of Chris Holland at Ring of Fire 43 earlier this month. Replacing “The New York Badass” was Zorobabel Moreira, a tall lightweight sporting a 6-1 record before the bout. If “El Matador” was looking to break out of his recent slump, Moreira was, on paper, the perfect opportunity.

In reality, Huerta had his moments early on in the fight, using his aggressive striking against the jiu-jitsu black belt. But once Moreira started to catch Huerta with kicks of his own, he controlled the fight. The second round was all Moreira, as Huerta seemed tired, and was often hesitant to exchange. The fight was essentially over once Moreira caught Huerta with a knee, but since the referee didn’t stop the fight, Moreira capped things off with a brutal soccer kick. Retirement might be a good idea for Huerta, who has now lost six of his last seven outings.

The same cannot be said for Renato “Babalu” Sobral. When it was announced that Babalu would be making his return to the cage against the 11-7 Tatsuya Mizuno, we posited that the Sobral’s time away from the cage was the only thing keeping this fight from being a PRIDE-era mismatch. Well, we were wrong: The fight played out exactly as it would have two years ago, when Babalu was a consensus top ten light-heavyweight. It only took Babalu thirty one seconds to put away Mizuno with an armbar. I know, I’m just as shocked as you are.

Okay, enough of the chit-chat. We first have videos of just the Huerta/Sobral fights. Then we have a video of the entire main card, followed by a list of results if you’re feeling especially lazy today. Props to IronForgesIron.com for the videos.

Full Results:

Renato Sobral def. Tatsuya Mizuno by submission (armbar), 0:31 of Round One
Zorobabel Moreira def. Roger Huerta by KO (soccer kick), 3:53 of Round Two
Leandro Issa def. Masakazu Imanari by unanimous decision
Adam Kayoom def. Gregor Gracie by unanimous decision
Eric Kelly def. Bae Young Kwon by unanimous decision
Arnaud Lepont def. Brian Choi by submission (rear-naked choke), 1:38 of Round Three

Preliminary Card:

Mitch Chilson def. AJ Lias Mansor by submission (rear-naked choke), 1:39 of Round One
Marcos Escobar def. Rodrigo Praxedes by submission (D’arce choke), 1:40 of Round Three
Peter Davis def. Kim Quek Hong by TKO (knees and punches), 0:55 of Round One