10 Legendary MMA Fighters You've Probably Never Heard Of

Tag: Bellator

Wednesday Morning MMA Link Club: Ronda Vs. Karo, Cris Cyborg Training Photos, Bellator’s Best Fights of 2011 + More


(And here we have Ronda Rousey dumping Karo Parisyan on his head. Props: DantheWolfman)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere…

- The Great ‘Must Retire’ List of 2011 (MMA Convert)

- Bellator’s 10 Best Fights of 2011 (The Fight Nerd)

- Photo Gallery: Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos Training for Hiroko Yamanaka (Lowkick.Blitzcorner.com)

- The 25 Most Outrageous MMA-Related Videos on YouTube (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Spike TV to Counter-Program ‘UFC on FOX 2′ With ‘UFC Unleashed: Evans vs. Davis’ (MMA Payout)

- Arianny Celeste: Chael Sonnen Is Very Polite To Me Backstage (FightLine)

- Keith Kizer: Urine Is ‘Obviously’ Better Than Blood for Steroid Testing (Fight Opinion)

- Dana White Sees Jon Jones as #2 Pound-for-Pound Fighter in the World (Five Ounces of Pain)

- Joseph Benavidez Inspired to Become a Great Champion in New UFC Flyweight Division (MMA Mania)

- Demian Maia: I Know I Can Submit Michael Bisping (MMAFighting)

- Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Avoids Surgery on Broken Arm (5th Round)

- Can Someone Please Help Felice Herrig With Her Wardrobe Malfunction? (MiddleEasy)

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War Machine Re-Signs With Bellator; May Compete in Season 6 Welterweight Tournament


(“I’ve turned over a new leaf, Fujiko. So no funny stuff this time. Just a normal Swedish massage and asshole wax, please.”)

War Machine‘s career comeback is picking up steam. After his third-round TKO victory against Roger Huerta last month — War’s first match after spending a year in prison for assault — the previously-troubled welterweight has announced his signing with Bellator: “So it’s now official public knowledge. I signed with Bellator and will be in the next welterweight tournament. [I] can’t wait to be back fighting on live television with the big boys.”

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney confirmed the signing, though not War Machine’s participation in the next welterweight bracket; his debut date and opponent is yet to be announced. As Rebney told MMAJunkie, “Jon’s not had an easy road. And there’s no doubt he’s made some poor choices, but after having had conversations with him since his release, he really seems to understand where and why things went wrong and wants to make them right…I hope he’s able to turn this second chance into something positive.”

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CP Interview: Jessica Aguilar Wants the Best — and It Ain’t the Champ

“My regular training schedule was interrupted briefly after I broke a bone and had it pinned for faster and stronger healing – but now I am right back at full speed, 100% healthy, working like an animal, loving every minute and can feel that my training performance has clearly reached a new career high for me – I am really pumped and ready to go!!” -Jessica Aguilar, on training         PicProps: Tom Hill

When you look into Jessica Aguilar’s training regimen, you know that you’re dealing with a dedicated athlete.  Her typical schedule is brutal.  Her gym, American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida, is home to elite fighters.  Her “personal time” — a couple of hours carved out of the afternoon — are usually spent working, to supplement a fighting income that doesn’t always square with having the best equipment, or a registered dietitian on call, or a hyperbaric chamber in your back yard.

Not that you’ll hear her complain.  Aguilar gets by the with help of her sponsors, and she’s quick to point it out.  But unlike the usual ham-handed attempts by fighters to plug companies that send them checks, Aguilar comes across as genuinely appreciative of the people and companies who have supported her through lean times.  Talk to her for five minutes, and you realize that the positivity and tenacity aren’t marketing points, they’re deeply ingrained character traits.  That attitude, the relentless optimism, the rugged determination, have served Aguilar well in her six year career.

Join us after the jump for all of CP’s exclusive interview with Jessica.

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Hate to Say We Told You So, But SPIKE TV is Planning a Bellator-Based Reality Show for 2013


(Sources say the new show will have 75% less bodily fluid ingestion in each season.)

A couple weeks back on The Bum Rush Radio Show we predicted that SPIKE TV would pick up the slack left by the exit of The Ultimate Fighter by putting together a different MMA-based reality show, likely with Bellator fighters. Considering they are all technically employees of the Viacom-owned channel since the media conglomerate purchased a majority stake in the promotion last month, it would make sense.

In our reality, they would put all of the upcoming opponents from a scheduled card in the same fighter house, which we know would never happen, but we can still dream, right?

Well, according to a report by SI’s Loretta Hunt we were half right.

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Ask the Potato: Bellator, Nick Diaz and More Elevator Etiquette


Even a broken potato is right twice a day.

Admit it: You thought the return of Ask the Potato would be one and done. You thought there’d be no way we could stick to a feature for two Saturdays in a row. Shame on you for having such little faith in us. Not only have we actually put together a new edition of Ask the Potato, but we’ve even reached out to our Twitter account for a question this week. It’s called “progress”, people. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Questions and answers are after the jump.

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Viacom’s Purchase of Bellator Fallout: Four Overlooked Things That Will Likely Happen Because of the Deal


(Well, at least *some* of the inevitable changes will be good.)

When it was announced today that media giant Viacom had purchased Bellator Fighting Championships, most of us probably overlooked the bigger picture of what the deal means to the landscape of MMA. At a glance, better financial backing and being on a more popular channel like Spike means better fights and bigger paychecks for fighters, but behind the scenes the scope of the deal is likely much bigger than we know and the aftershocks will be felt for some time.

Check out four of the biggest likelihoods that will come out of the purchase after the jump.

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Viacom Buys Majority Stake in Bellator; Spike to Begin Broadcasting Events in 2013


(Well, well, well…)

Spike TV will become the new home for Bellator starting in 2013. According to a new USA Today report, Viacom — the parent company of MTV Networks — has purchased a majority stake in Bellator Fighting Championships, signaling the official end to their six-year relationship with the UFC.

CEO Bjorn Rebney will remain in charge of Bellator. Speaking about the Viacom deal with USA Today, he said: “It puts all of those cornerstones of ownership in place for us, which is something that’s been so seriously lacking in the MMA space with so many different companies, including Strikeforce and the IFL and Affliction and all the different failures that have occurred…It alleviates those issues…It’s a very, very good day for mixed martial arts as a whole, because now you have two groups in the space that have a very substantial presence that obviously isn’t going to go anywhere for a very, very long time.”

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Injury Forces Zoila Frausto-Gurgel Out of Bellator 57 Title Bout With Carina Damm


(Zoila will likely be out of commission until early to mid 2012)

Bellator women’s strawweight champion Zoila Frausto-Gurgel announced today via Twitter that she has torn one of her anterior cruciate ligaments and has been forced to pull out of a scheduled November 12 title defense at Bellator 57 in Orillia, Ontario, Canada.

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Bellator 54 Recap: Shlemenko & Vianna Advance, Big Rig is Bellator Bound


Shlemenko vs. Rogers from last night’s Bellator 54

If last night’s Bellator 54 in Atlantic City, New Jersey was a preview of things to come, then under no condition should you skip the finale of this season’s middleweight tournament. Unless you don’t like watching exciting brawls and devastating knockouts. In that case, I really don’t know why you’re here in the first place.

Alexander Shlemenko and Brian Rogers both promised a knockout before the fight, and it quickly became apparent that neither man planned on breaking that promise. A back and forth battle from the opening seconds, the fight saw each fighter land hard shots to his opponent. In the second round, however, Shlemenko’s superior clinch game helped him get the better of Rogers, as Shlemenko rocked Rogers with knees to the head before the referee stopped the fight. Alexander Shlemenko is now 42-7 in his MMA career, and 6-1 in Bellator.

The evening’s co-main event, Vitor Vianna took home a quick TKO over Bryan Baker. From the start of the fight, Baker showed little respect for Vianna’s striking. Bryan Baker chose to throw bombs at Vianna in hopes of getting a quick finish. Bryan Baker chose poorly.

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Friday Afternoon Link Dump


(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMAWeekly)

- Aaron Rodgers is the best at photobombing (WithLeather)

- CP contributor Brian D’Souza talks about why GSP has gotten boring to watch (Fan960)

- Marquardt on Daley, Free Agency and BAMMA (BleacherReport)

- Real life superhero and amateur MMA fighter appeared in court this week (Complex)

- ProElite readies for second life (SportsIllustrated)

- Ex Showtime honcho, Hershman heads to HBO (MMAPayout)

-My First Fight: Rich Franklin  (MMAFighting)

- LeBron James to the NFL? (TheBigLead)

- 12 photos of sexy zombie women (MTVClutch)

- Candace Swanepool in Victoria’s Secret lingerie because it’s Friday (Guyism)

- Approaching different “types” (Bullz-Eye)

- Torrentfreak’s top 10 most downloaded movies of all time (Filmdrunk)

- Looney Tunes: the porn audition script (HolyTaco)

- Hilarious comedian Fred Durst gets sitcom on CBS (ScreenJunkies)

- How to cozy up the man cave (MadeMan)

- Little kid loves Iron Maiden (TuVez)

- Dangerous ‘how-to” by a terrible electrician (Break)

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Bellator 52 Video Highlights: Ron Sparks Crushes Mark Holata, Neil Grove Bumped Out of Tourney


(Props: BellatorMMA)

For those of you who had better things to do on Saturday, Bellator put together this helpful video recap of their Season Five heavyweight tournament quarterfinals. And for a card full of relatively obscure big-men, the show wasn’t half bad.

Ron Sparks (8-0) continued his rise towards relevancy with an 84-second knockout of Mark Holata. Sparks also happens to be one of those dudes with his own last name tattooed on his stomach, but we won’t hold it against him. Speaking of stoppages, Blagoi Ivanov (5-0, 1 no contest) also kept his unbeaten record, smashing Zak Jensen standing then putting him to a sleep in the second round with a guillotine choke.

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Everything You Need to Know About Tomorrow’s Bellator 52 Heavyweight Tournament


(Ron Sparks: All about the peace and love. / Photo via TheFightNerd.)

Bellator 52 goes down tomorrow night at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana, featuring the quarterfinals of the promotion’s second heavyweight tournament. We’ll be honest — the eight-man bracket isn’t exactly overflowing with star-power, and watching 265-pounders slug it out is always a mixed bag. But if Cruz vs. Johnson isn’t enough to satisfy your hunger for combat this weekend, you might as well DVR the MTV2 broadcast. (Do it right now, before you forget.) Here’s how the HW quarters shake out:

Neil Grove vs. Mike Hayes
Blagoi Ivanov vs. Zak Jensen
Eric Prindle vs. Abe Wagner
Mark Holata vs. Ron Sparks

Now, some fun facts:

- Blagoi Ivanov is that dude who outpointed Fedor Emelianenko in combat sambo in 2008, back when beating Fedor at anything seemed like a very big deal. He’s now 4-0 with 1 no-contest in his MMA career, and won his Bellator debut in March by TKO’ing William Penn in one round.

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Spike TV Playing Hardball With UFC; Dana White is Not Happy


(A woman scorned always has her revenge.)

It looks like Spike TV isn’t going to let the UFC walk away from their longtime liaison quietly.

Like a woman scorned , Spike will attempt to sabotage Zuffa’s burgeoning relationship with Fox by counter-programming the network’s first UFC event featuring a heavyweight tilt between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos with a three-hour special “Dos Santos vs. Velasquez: Unleashed” series of shows according to MMA Junkie. The November 12 Unleashed Marathon will begin at 9:00 just as Fox’s inaugural UFC event is set to start.

According to the report,  Spike owns the broadcast rights to the UFC library through 2012, and unless Zuffa buys back the rights the network will likely continue to counter-program Fox’s events for the next year. The catch 22 of the situation is that unless the UFC buys back the rights, Spike cannot air any other promotion’s events, which explains why it is only airing Bellator’s prelims on its website. The move could be a testing ground to see if there’s enough interest to move Bellator’s weekly events to the rotation when the UFC agreement expires.

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Bellator Lightweight Champ Eddie Alvarez Injured, Out of October 15 Title Bout With Michael Chandler

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez (22-2) has suffered an undisclosed injury and has been forced to pull out of an October 15 title bout with undefeated Season 4 lightweight tournament winner Michael Chandler (8-0) that was slated for Bellator 54 at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J.

In spite of the setback, Bellator chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney is optimistic that Alvarez will defend his belt in the fall, but wouldn’t say whether or not Chandler will wait for the champ to heal.

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Bellator is Teasing Hector Lombard vs. Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral Nov. 19


(“Publicity stunt, you say? What’s that?”)

Apparently Renato “Babalu” Sobral is a free agent. Otherwise, Bellator wouldn’t be talking to the former UFC light heavyweight contender about possibly facing its middleweight champ, Hector Lombard.

According to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, his promotion has been involved in talks with Sobral’s camp to sign the 36-9  submission specialist for a non-title bout with Lombard (30-2-1, 1 NC) at Bellator 58 on November 19, but nothing is set in stone. Strangely, the promoter still announced that the bout was in the works, which could simply be a tactic to pressure Babalu, who has only fought twice in the past two years, into signing on the dotted line.

“I’ve been a big ‘Babalu’ fan for a lot of years,” Rebney told MMAJunkie. “They weren’t really on our radar, but then they reached out to us and opened the door and asked for a few things. We agreed to all of them. … But now we’re siting back and waiting. We haven’t heard anything back from them in three or four days.”

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Bellator 50: With A Name Like “Hollywood”, How Can the Crowd Not Be Jerks?

“Man, I just can’t tell you how much stronger I feel since I got my leukocyte count under control, you know?  I feel like I could do this all day!”  PicProps:  Keith Mills for Sherdog

Since we all know that you didn’t watch Bellator last night, how about a recap?  Come on inside for accounts of the event, plus videos of the middleweight tournament bouts, courtesy of Zee2TehPee and ArnForgesArn.com – massive props to those guys.  Boo boo on the crowd in Hollywood, Florida, which seemed just a little too quick to rain down boos on a good night of fights.  Come on inside and I’ll tell you all about it.

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Set Your DVR: Bellator 50 Kicks Off Middleweight Tournament Tomorrow Night


Bellator’s “Like Water” promo has been updated. Can you spot the difference?* VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

Bellator’s fifth season middleweight tournament gets underway tomorrow night, with live broadcasts on MTV2 and EPIX covering all the main card action. With some stiff competition from the UFC and the WBC, there may be considerably fewer eyeballs on the bouts in Hollywood, Florida, but don’t tell these guys. There’s going to be some action. Go back and read the preview if you’ve forgotten anyone, and let’s run down the CagePotato picks for the evening.

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Kurt Pellegrino Ends Three-Month Retirement, Signs to Fight Patricky ‘Pitbull’ Freire at Bellator 59


(Good to have you back, buddy.)

Well damn, that didn’t last long. A little over three months after announcing his retirement from MMA — due to his fading motivation to compete and a desire to spend time with his new son — the game has sucked Batman back in. Kurt Pellegrino announced on Saturday that he has signed with Bellator, and will face Season Four lightweight tournament finalist Patricky “Pitbull” Freire at Bellator 59, November 26th at Caesar’s Atlantic City. As Kurt explained:

It was like Rocky II when Adrian awoke from the coma and told Rocky to ‘win’. I was retired, sitting home watching videos with my son, but I was also training at that time and was in great shape when my wife walked up to me and said ‘If you want to do it again, go for it’. Before that, I felt bad for being away training and missing my daughter’s first words, changing diapers, etc. I was so happy that I was able to be there for my son’s big moments – but the fact that my family supports me returning to fight means everything to me…

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Bellator 49 Quick Results: Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima Advance in Welterweight Tournament


(Chris Lozano jacks Brent Weedman with an uppercut during their three-rounder at Caesars Atlantic City. Photo via Bellator)

Bellator’s fifth season kicked off last night, featuring the quarterfinals of their latest welterweight tournament. Still undefeated since his release from the UFC last year, Ben Saunders grabbed his second Bellator victory — and a spot in the semi-finals — in classic “Killa B” fashion, abusing Chris Cisneros for two rounds before ending the bout early in the third frame with a storm of knees from his infamous Thai clinch. Former MFC welterweight champion Douglas Lima also impressed in his promotional debut, winning a unanimous decision over Steve Carl.

On a less-triumphant note, former Bellator standouts Chris Weedman and Dan Hornbuckle ate their second-consecutive losses at the event. Weedman, who ran through his first four opponents under the Bellator banner before getting outpointed by Jay Hieron at the Season 4 Welterweight Finals, fell short once again against Chris Lozano. Weedman took the first round easily on the strength of a knockdown and a slam-takedown, but Lozano controlled the next ten minutes and won a unanimous nod from the judges. Earlier in the evening, Dan Hornbuckle was thoroughly handled by season Brazilian vet Luis “Sapo” Santos.

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Bellator to Stream Preliminary Fights On Spike, Still Not Admitting They’re Leaving MTV2

Bellator is really stepping up their game with these promo videos. VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

Well this is interesting: following in the pioneering steps of the UFC, Bellator is announcing that they will begin streaming the undercard fights on the series of tubes known as the internet.

That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is who they’re partnering with: Spike. Yep, those guys.

According to a press release sent to the CagePotato Desk for Serious Journalism, You Guys (not actually a real place), the undercard fights will go live on Spike.com at 7pm ET as a lead-in for the main card broadcasts on MTV2 starting at 9pm. As we reported last week, the main cards will also be broadcast in HD on EPIX, which we personally confirmed is a extant channel that wasn’t made up by some Viacom dude with a stupid-long job title.

The press release included a quote from some Viacom dude (Executive Vice President, Digital Entertainment, MTV Networks Entertainment Group), a guy by the name of Erik Flannigan:

“Fight fans have been coming to our site for years for great mixed martial arts clips and information,” said Flannigan. “Now we are thrilled to provide them with action-packed live fighting each week.”

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Decorated Muay Thai Fighter Cosmo Alexandre signs with Bellator


Cosmo Alexandre could pan out to be a very exciting addition to Bellator’s roster

Yesterday, Liverkick.com passed along a report that Bellator has signed accomplished Muay Thai kickboxer Cosmo Alexandre to compete in their lightweight division. Fighting mostly at 160 and 170 pounds, Cosmo has compiled a 40-14-1 kickboxing record over the past seven years, as well as a 2-0 professional boxing record. As for his mixed martial arts experience, the Brazilian currently has none in the form of professional fights. Alexandre trains out of Imperial Athletics, whose notable fighters include Rashad Evans, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Jorge Santiago.

Intriguing signing, to say the least. It is certainly consistent with Bjorn Rebney’s model for developing fighters. Cosmo Alexandre is an unknown name to the American MMA fan that could essentially develop into Bellator’s version of Donald Cerrone: An elite striker who isn’t a fish out of water on the ground. Yet while Cosmo Alexandre may be able to translate his elite striking pedigree and strong camp into a successful MMA career, it is just as likely that he may be Bellator’s version of Ray Sefo: The world class kickboxer who gets caught in submissions that most of the white belts at your gym would feel embarrassed for succumbing to. Bellator’s lightweight division (and welterweight division, if he decides he’s more comfortable at 170) is stacked with good grapplers. While it helps to have Rashad Evans as a training partner, Alexandre is going to find himself getting taken down often due to the lack of fighters willing to stand and trade with him. If he doesn’t have good enough jiu jitsu to mount some offense off of his back, or at least avoid submission attempts, we may be in store for some pretty dissappointing fights. I’ll pause for you to make your own “It’s cool, he’s Brazilian” jokes.

Highlights from his Muay Thai career after the jump.

 

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Bellator Season 5 Preview: Once More, With Feeling

Remember: *this* is the guy that the middleweights are competing to fight. Hector Lombard knocked Vitale down twice with one punch. VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

So anybody notice that I mentioned Bellator yesterday?  You did?   And you didn’t comment about how splendiferous Bellator is, and how much you like watching the fights, and in general how witty and good looking we are here at CagePotato?
Well that’s just rude.  I’m inclined to not even bother running down the other two tourneys planned for this season.  Really, it’s like you don’t care.

Oh, alright.  Come on in and we’ll have coffee and talk.  But no staying over.

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Bellator’s Fifth Season is Coming

Above is the decidedly high-def looking promo for Bellator’s fifth season, kicking off on September 10th in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I mention the spiffyness of the visuals because one of the few complaints that I’ve ever leveled at BFC is the standard definition broadcasting. When the trailer was released a few weeks ago, I honestly thought it was just a little accidental irony.

Nope. A couple of days ago, it was announced that Bellator season five tournaments will be broadcast in HD baby! Now go dig out your cable programming guide and try to determine if you have EPIX. I’ve never heard of it, but apparently it’s an actual channel somewhere, so I’m going to call DISH Network and start offering them money until they can confirm that I’ll see Bellator in 1080p.

If you’re not excited about the upcoming season, watch that video again. You may not realize it, but that’s Bruce Lee talking about being like water. It’s some deep philosophical type shit, and it’s pretty much him guaranteeing that he’s going to join a tournament and wreck shop. Seeing the founder of Jeet Kun Do step away from his acting career and FINALLY step into the cage is going to be sick, and I’m looking forward to putting an end to all that speculation about how good he’d be.

(For an actual preview of two of the four planned tournaments this season, come on in past the jump.)

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Hot Rumor of the Day: Alvarez-Aoki Rematch in the Works for 2012

Bad news for Aoki: he may not be able to use those magic tights.

According to a report by Sherdog, Bellator is trying to wrangle a actual, no-shit SuperFight for Eddie Alvarez — a rematch against the Japanese submission wizard Shinya Aoki. The two met previously at Dynamite!!! 2008 for the DREAM lightweight championship, which Aoki won in just 92 seconds via heel hook.

The loss was Alvarez’s first (and only) loss at 155; he’s since reeled off seven straight wins in Bellator and DREAM, winning the Bellator lightweight strap along the way. Alvarez has seen his stock rise in the intervening years, while Aoki has suffered some humiliating losses, including an epic beatdown from Gilbert Melendez for Strikeforce and a hilarious KO loss to Yuichiro Nagashima at DREAM’s 2010 New Year’s Eve show.

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Videos: Curran and Petruzelli Deliver Highlight Reel KOs at Bellator 48


(Props: BellatorMMA)

So while we’re waiting on KarmaAteMyCat to deliver some videos from last night’s Bellator 48, let’s talk about the action, shall we? With all of the excitement from last night’s event, it only makes sense to start with Cole Konrad vs. Paul Buentello. Yes, they fought. Yes, Cole Konrad won in unspectacular fashion. Yes, we can now stop talking about this fight.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was Pat Curran’s dramatic head kick knockout of former Sengoku champion Marlon Sandro. Despite being in trouble early on, Pat Curran kept his composure and unleashed a brutal roundhouse kick. With his victory, Pat Curran becomes the first fighter to win a Bellator tournament in two different weight classes. I’m not sure what I’m looking forward to more: Pat Curran’s inevitable clash with Joe Warren, or the confused look on his banker’s face when he tries to cash that oversized check.

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Recent Bellator Signee Accused of Murder in Russia


(“I f*cking hate RC cars!”)

Undefeated Russian featherweight prospect Rasul Mirzaev (5-0) may not be able to compete for Bellator any time soon considering he may be preoccupied fighting a murder charge in Russia.

Mirzaev, 25,  is accused of killing a student in Moscow who was flirting with a female acquaintance of his outside of a nightclub in the Russian city.

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Mark Pavelich Is Not Fond of This Rebney Character

“…and I also understand that he always takes a penny, and never leaves one. He once killed a puppy with a kitten. He wears black all the time. He’s a malefactor, a villain. I don’t really know him from Adam, but f*ck that guy.”

Mark Pavelich, the owner/CEO/Gran High Poo-bah of Maximum Fighting Championships, is not the kind of guy who holds back his feelings. He’s an expressive, gregarious type who uses Twitter like he was getting bonuses for followers, and describing him as “outspoken” would be like saying Amy Winehouse liked to get high.* And right now, he’s feeling pretty pissed off at the Son of Winnebago Man.

It seems that recent moves by Bellator, particularly acquiring top MFC talents Douglas Lima and Ryan Ford, has worked the Pav’s nerves to the point that he had to go on Twitter to air his grievances, and then follow that up with an interview so he make sure that everyone understood the words that were coming out of his mouth. Pavelich insists that Bellator has signed unspecified fighters that are currently under contract with MFC, and Bjorn is an idiot. Furthermore, Pavelich doesn’t even know who this Bjorn guy is.

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Marquardt and Bellator Flirt, Have Awkward Date, Go Home Early

You know how you go on a date with someone, and they talk for two hours about their ex?  Yeah, it’s like that.

Well this is interesting.  MMAJunkie is reporting that Bjorn Rebney has confirmed talks with Marquardt and his management, but that there is no deal in place.  With all the speculation and assumptions and begging and threats and promises and retorts that have been going around, it seemed like Nate the Great was headed to the BFC to lock horns with at least one of their champions.

So what happened?  Let’s hear it from the man in black himself:

“Nate’s situation was pretty unique. It’s an anomaly for a guy like that to become available, so we had discussions. But it just became pretty clear it wasn’t the right fit.”

Wait, so, a week ago, Bellator was interested, but now, it’s just doesn’t feel right?

Very interesting, indeed.  Let us read in between the lines for a bit, if we may.

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Happy Ending Alert: Rad Martinez Scores Bellator Contract After ESPN ‘Outside the Lines’ Appearance

Hailing from West Jordan, Utah, Rad Martinez has compiled a 9-2 record as a professional MMA fighter while caring full-time for his father Richard, who suffered significant brain damage in a car accident twenty years ago. Martinez’s story caught the attention of ESPN, who produced a moving “Outside the Lines” video feature on the fighter, covering the multiple tragedies of his family life as well as his current struggle to balance his profession with his personal obligations. If you haven’t seen it yet, we highly recommend taking 11 minutes of your day and checking it out above.

Thanks in part to the ESPN profile, Martinez has just gotten the first big break in his career, as Bellator announced this morning that they had signed the featherweight prospect to a fight contract. “Rad not only has an incredibly uplifting, powerful story, but he’s also a fierce competitor who will be a great addition to the Bellator family,” said Bellator chairman/CEO Bjorn Rebney in a press release. “We’re proud to have Rad under the Bellator banner, and expect big things from him inside the Bellator cage.”

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Bellator’s First Canadian Show Takes Major Hit; Freire Injured and Out of Planned July 23 Rematch With Warren


(“I’ll see you in November. Keep my belt warm.”)

Bellator’s first foray into the Canadian MMA market has taken a major hit.

According to the Chicago-based promotion,  highly touted Brazilian featherweight Patricio “Pitbull” Freire has been forced to withdraw from a planned July 23 rematch with champ Joey Warren at Bellator 47 in Rama, Ontario, Canada due to a hand injury, leaving them scrambling to find a main event bout for the show in less than three weeks.

Freire confirmed the news via Twitter today along with a photo”Pitbull” tweeted of his injured paw.


(“The truth is I hurt it slapping my TV when they showed Chael Sonnen during the UFC 132 telecast.”)

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