Say what you want about how bitter SPIKE is acting towards the UFC ever since acquiring rights to Bellator. But after watching Bellator 60 last night in Hammond, Indiana on MTV2, it’s not hard to understand what SPIKE sees in the promotion. Season Six kicked off with a bang, with a new featherweight champion and four men advancing in the season’s featherweight tournament.

Even without considering Joe Warren’s Greco-Roman background, it’s no surprise that Warren’s gameplan would consist of attempting takedowns early and often after the brutal knockout loss to Alexis Vila he suffered in his last fight at Bellator 51. And while Warren found success with his takedowns, he was completely unable to keep Pat Curran on the mat. Curran landed some hard shots throughout the fight, but a hard right knee in the third round put Warren out on his feet. But since the referee didn’t stop the fight, Curran then landed a flurry of punches and knees that caused Joe Warren to turn his back to the challenger. And when the referee still didn’t stop the fight, Pat Curran landed two huge uppercuts that floored Warren, finally ending the fight one minute and twenty five seconds into the third round. With the victory, Curran improves to 17-4 in his MMA career, including a 7-1 run in Bellator.

Video After the jump.

(Bellator: Now with twice as much maple syrup and back bacon.)

Canadian MMA fans will get a double-dose of Bellator Fighting Championships in back-to-back months this Spring.

CagePotato.com has learned that the Chicago-based promotion has secured May 4 for its second Ontario event of 2012 and that the show will take place at Casino Rama in Rama, Ontario. As we announced last week, BFC will also be holding an April 6 event in Windsor.

The May show will be the third held at the native-run casino. Both Bellator 47 and 57 took place at the venue.

(And YOU get an unnecessarily long beatdown, and YOU get an unnecessarily long beatdown!) 

Bellator recently announced the lineup and first round match-ups for its 6th season middleweight tournament, and it features more than its fair share of familiar faces. First off, after reportedly suffering a heart attack during training back in November, former UFC middleweight Maiquel Falcao will be returning to action against 10-1-1 Norman Paraisy. Paraisy, a Paris, France native, previously fell to a first round rear-naked choke at the hands of inaugural UFC middleweight champion Dave Menne in his last Bellator appearance, which took place back in April of 2009. Paraisy has gone 5-0-1 since the loss, picking up wins over Paulo Filho and Jack Mason among others. True to his fighting style, Falcao last picked up a first round TKO victory over Douglas Del Rio, a video of which is below.

(Falcao also strayed from his usual fighting style, however, as he actually managed to stop punching his opponent when the ref intervened.) 

(“Chainsaw-f*cking” jokes are so much funnier when Dane Cook does them.)

In their continuing efforts to pick up the best fighters that Zuffa doesn’t want, Bellator has reportedly signed former UFC heavyweight prospect Sean McCorkle to compete on the undercard of Bellator 60, March 9th in Hammond, Indiana. According to Sherdog, his opponent is expected to be Richard “Big Man” White, who has lost ten of his last twelve fights.

McCorkle’s brief spin through the Octagon was highlighted by an agonizing weight cut, a debut victory against Mark Hunt, and back-to-back stoppage losses against Stefan Struve and Christian Morecraft. Since then, he’s gone 3-0 in regional leagues, with all wins by first-round submission. Like many of his early opponents, his last two victims carried losing records. McCorkle is already booked to face Mike Gordon next Saturday at a North American Allied Fight Series event in West Virginia. Gordon is undefeated in sanctioned MMA competition, with a perfect record of 1-0. Christ, Sean, where do you find these people?

(War Machine poses with the kids’ MMA class that he is somehow allowed to teach. Props: @WarMachine170)

Two interesting updates to Bellator’s sixth season, which begins March 2nd…

— After signing to the promotion in December, War Machine has secured his quarterfinal opponent for Bellator’s upcoming welterweight tournament. As he wrote on Twitter yesterday, “Fuck ya its on! My first fight in @BellatorMMA tournament will be March 30th vs. Karl Amoussou!! Gonna send him back to France in peices!!” It will be Machine’s first appearance since his impressive post-prison win against Roger Huerta in November.

Karl “Psycho” Amoussou (13-4-2, 1-1 in Bellator) is indeed French, and has also competed for M-1, Strikeforce, DREAM, and Pancrase. The Haute Tension product most recently scored a first-round TKO over Jesus Martinez in a 175-pound catchweight bout at Bellator 59 in November. Bellator’s Season 6 welterweight bracket will include Bryan Baker, Brian Foster, undefeated triangle-choke specialist David Rickels, and Season 5 tournament finalist Ben Saunders. War Machine is already looking forward to an emotional reunion with his TUF 6 castmate.

In other news…

Ueda & Nakamura. Photos not exactly to scale. (Pics: Sherdog.com)

While some MMA promotions are culling their divisions, Bellator is steadily adding depth to its ranks. The Spike-bound organization has announced the addition of two new fighters to their roster. Japanese standouts Masakatsu Ueda and Hiroshi Nakamura will make their Bellator debuts in the Season 6 Bantamweight tournament.

Nakamura went 3-1 in 2011 and comes into the tourney riding a pair of wins over Seiji Akao and Yoshiro Maeda. With his last six fights going the distance, “Iron” seems to have the sort of Fitch-level durability one needs to survive the grueling tournament format.

Ueda has only fallen once in his six-year career. The top-10 ranked bantamweight has also only fought outside of the Shooto organization on one occasion, picking up a win over Royler Gracie at AFC 1 last September. Ueda also holds wins over Rumina Sato and Bellator Season 5 Bantamweight Tournament Champion Eduardo Dantas. He still has an upcoming bout against Kyoji Horiguchi before making his way stateside.

The pair join a nearly-completed tournament line-up of Alexis Vila, Marcos Galvao, Ed West, Rodrigo Lima, Luis Nogueira. Any favorites going in?

(Will MMA finally be able to overcome the mythical Friday Night Death Slot?)

By Jason Moles

Last week, it was announced that Bellator Fighting Championships would be changing the night they broadcast their weekly fights, beginning with their Season 6 tournaments in March 2012.

Instead of competing for an audience on Saturday nights, when most fans are preoccupied with UFC pay-per-views and college football, Bjorn Rebney in conjunction with Viacom, has determined the best night for the largest number of MMA fans to enjoy the show is Friday. Good choice? Perhaps.

Also airing on Friday nights starting in 2012 is the UFC’s flagship reality series, The Ultimate Fighter. In its fifteenth season, Zuffa decided to mix it up a bit in hopes of revitalizing fan interest and attracting new viewers by airing the fights live.

So will Bellator gain any ground if they’re still competing with the world’s largest MMA promotion? Will the in-house shenanigans, trash-talking coaches, and UFC brand be able to attract a larger audience than an entire night of live fights, some of which have been classified as ‘Super‘? Not only can we not be in two places at once, we can’t watch two television programs at the same time either. So, who wins the ratings war?