Bellator’s eighth season ended much like it began — with featherweight champion Pat Curran putting his belt on the line and emerging victorious. His opponent in the main event of last night’s Bellator 95 card in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was Shahbulat Shamhalaev, the Dagestan-bred knockout artist who clinched his title shot with his KO of Rad Martinez in February. Unlike his 25-minute squeaker against Patricio Freire in January, Curran only needed half a round to take Shamhalaev down and put him to sleep with an arm-in guillotine, earning his second successful title defense.

Depending on availability, Curran’s next opponent could be Season 6 winner Daniel Straus — who was forced to withdraw from Bellator 95 due to a broken hand — or Bellator’s latest featherweight tournament winner, Magomedrasul “Frodo” Khasbulaev, who defeated Mike Richman in a 15-minute dogfight last night. Though Richman was game through all three rounds, opening up some cuts on the Russian’s face in round two, Frodo clearly had the advantages in striking, takedowns, and overall aggression. Khasbulaev was awarded 30-27 scores from all three judges, and a $100,000 check from his employer.

In the night’s other Season 8 tournament final, middleweight Doug “The Rhino” Marshall continued his improbable career comeback by knocking out Brett Cooper in the first round. Cooper had some success early in putting Marshall on his back, but once Marshall regained his footing, it was Rhino Time. A hard right hand from Marshall sent Cooper to the canvas, and some follow-up bombs sealed the deal. The win increased Marshall’s Bellator record to 4-0, with three of those wins by first-round KO/TKO.

“Man, I hope he’s OK,” Marshall said afterwards. “I was trying to knock his beard off, but it didn’t come off. Maybe next time.”

(Bellator 92 highlights courtesy of Bellator.com) 

Although Mark Hunt’s comeback run in the UFC has been nothing short of inspirational, there’s been a similarly grizzled veteran quietly putting together an improbable run for a title in the Bellator realm of the world (I believed it’s pronounced “The Midwest”) as well. We’re talking, of course, about former WEC light heavyweight champion Doug Marshall, who all but fell off the face of the earth after being knocked out by then undefeated killing machine Brian Stann at WEC 33. Since then, however, Marshall has put together a respectable 9-3 record, including a pair of devastating performances in his first two Bellator appearances. Not bad for a guy we last saw getting crushed by Zelg Galesic in the Super Fight League.

On the heels of an upset victory over season 6 finalist Andreas Spang in the season 8 quarterfinals last month, Marshall squared off against the undefeated Russian Sultan Aliev last night. As we know, these are prime days to be a Russian competing in Bellator, hence why Aliev was a 3-to-1 favorite heading into the affair. The good news? Marshall took another huge step forward in what has been an unlikely championship run, defeating Aliev by way of split decision. The even better news? Despite being napped on for the majority of the first and third rounds, Marshall was handed the victory for actually bringing the fight to his opponent without needing a warning from Herb Dean to do so. It was a decision that you wouldn’t likely see swing in Marshall’s favor 9 times out of 10, but for once, takedowns + top control – any actual offense did not equal a winning combination in MMA. We were just as shocked as you were.

Full results for Bellator 92 and a couple gif highlights are after the jump. 

(Images via Sherdog, @MikeUSMCRichman)

By Elias Cepeda

You may have never heard of Brett Cooper (18-7), but chances are you know a lot of the guys he’s beaten. The middleweight has scored victories against six veterans of the UFC, Strikeforce, and WEC over the course of his eight-year career.

Tonight at Bellator 92, Cooper fights another UFC veteran – TUF 7 castmember Dan Cramer – in the semifinals of Bellator’s Season 8 Middleweight tournament, airing on Spike. The 25-year-old Southern-California native’s journey towards respect and notoriety has been long and hard since he decided he wanted to become a mixed martial arts fighter.

His interest was as it is now, simple but hard to explain. “I was always an athlete as a kid, and in all the sports I did I always wanted to be the best,” Cooper tells CagePotato.

“When I started training martial arts, I figured the way to show you’re the best at that was to fight in MMA. So, when I first walked into a gym, I told the coaches, ‘I want to be a fighter,’” he laughs.

Cooper admits that people like that often get dismissed or laughed at in serious gyms. But the kid stuck with it and threw himself into the deep end, fighting early and often. Cooper was seventeen the first time he fought as a professional, though it wasn’t until a couple years later that he says he started thinking of himself as a pro.

“I didn’t start to take it as a professional thing until I was around twenty years old,” he says. “Around that time, I fought Rory Markham, I fought [Jason] Von Flue. I started to take it more seriously and train even better, to fight those guys.”

“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.

(Above: ‘Ayyyyyy‘ — An expression of combat known worldwide. / Below: Matt Major shows off the design that got him eliminated on last night’s episode of Project Runway.)

By ReX “I H8 FSN” Richardson

Last night, Bellator XXIX went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (which I believe is a Native American word meaning “Dude, I Think We’re Lost”) and put on the first nationally-televised MMA event ever in the state. Bellator seems to thrive by signing fighters hungry for wins, and has kept the energy up by focusing on the lighter weight classes, so it was a bit of a curveball when a heavyweight tournament was announced. Many questioned if Bellator could pull enough quality heavyweights with the conditioning necessary to put on entertaining fights. Heavyweight fights in the Bellator promotion to this point have been a mixed bag, but we’re starting to see the cream rise so I’m optimistic that some fun stuff happens. A couple of loser-leaves-town matches round out the televised card, featuring some guys who’ve been bounced out of tournaments previously (and want back in), plus they snagged the tubby Guida brother to test the light heavyweight waters.

Come on in and I’ll fill you in on the latest Bellator results and news. I promise I’ll lay off the fat jokes this time.