Jorge Masvidal

(Props: youtube.com/BellatorMMA)

Bellator's inaugural season came to a close on Friday night, with the finals of their middleweight and lightweight brackets. In the 185-pound title fight, Hector Lombard used his striking and ground-and-pound to open up some nasty cuts on the head of his opponent, Jared Hess; the fight was eventually stopped in the fourth round after Hess lost a few gallons of blood. Directly after, 155-pound favorite Eddie Alvarez completed his sweep of the lightweight tourney by knocking Toby Imada out of his jock with a big right hook early in the second round, then sinking in a rear-naked choke. Lombard and Alvarez collected $100,000 checks for their efforts.

In non-tournament action, Jorge Masvidal submitted Eric Reynolds via third-round rear-naked choke, Bodog/ShoXC vet Rosi Sexton submitted Valerie Coolbaugh via first-round armbar, and Stephanie Guimaraes became Bellator's latest YouTube star with her 49-second knee-knockout of Yvonne Reis. The Guimaraes knockout is above; highlights from the Lombard/Hess and Alvarez/Imada fights are after the jump.

(Yeah, that's an upside down triangle choke. Props: Watch Kalib Run.)

Maybe the most interesting story to come out of Bellator so far is Toby Imada’s upset of Jorge Masvidal in last night’s Bellator lightweight tournament semi-finals.  Masvidal was reportedly in control for most of the bout, but in the third round a failed takedown attempt led to an upside down triangle choke from Imada against a standing Masvidal.  Masvidal did his best to endure it, but ended up collapsing to the canvas unconscious.  Bellator promises us video of the submission soon, and this ought to be good.  Imada moves on to the finals to face Eddie Alvarez, who was also victorious last night.  Full results are after the jump.

(Wilson Reis vs. Henry Martinez)

If you're one of the proud, multi-lingual subscribers of ESPN Deportes, this is old news to you, but the second weekly installment of the Bellator Fighting Championships went down Friday night (and was broadcast on Saturday), with former EliteXC 140-pound champ Wilson Reis extending his record to 7-0 with a decision win over Henry Martinez, and IFL/Ring of Combat vet Lyman Good scoring his eighth consecutive win after choking out Hector Urbina. Also on the card was Jorge Ortiz (aka "The Naked Man"), who scored a decision win over Aaron Romero. You can watch the entire broadcast (in English!) starting this Wednesday on Bellator.com. Full results are below...

TOURNAMENT BOUTS
Wilson Reis def. Henry Martinez via unanimous decision (bantamweights)
Eric Reynolds def. Thomas Schulte via TKO, 4:18 of round 1 (lightweights)
Lyman Good def. Hector Urbina via submission (rear-naked choke), 3:22 of round 2 (welterweights)
Omar de la Cruz def. Victor Meza via unanimous decision (welterweights)
Jorge Ortiz def. Aaron Romero via unanimous decision (welterweights)

NON-TOURNAMENT BOUTS
Jesse Juarez def. Mikey Gomez via TKO, 4:23 of round one (welterweights)
Matt Makowksi def. Aaron Tregear via unanimous decision (lightweights)
Jimmie Rivera def. Willie Gates via submission (triangle choke), 3:17 of round 3 (bantamweights)
Josh Laberge def. Chris Simmons via unanimous decision (lightweights)

Bellator's staggered four-weight-class tournament system may seem confusing at first, but basically here's what's going to happen...

(Jorge Masvidal vs. Ryan Schulz; more videos here.)

From today's Sengoku show at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan...

Middleweight GP 1st Round:
Yuki Sasaki def. Yuki Kondo via submission (rear-naked choke), round 2
Siyar Bahadurzada def. Evangelista Santos via TKO (injury), round 1
Jorge Santiago def. Logan Clark via submission (arm triangle choke), round 1
Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Paul Cahoon via unanimous decision

Lightweights:
Jorge Masvidal def. Ryan Schultz via TKO, round 1
Kiuma Kunioku def. Sol Kwon via unanimous decision

Heavyweights:
Muhammed Lawal def. Travis Wiuff via TKO, round 1

Light-Heavyweights:
Xande Ribeiro def. Takashi Sugiura via TKO, round 3

In other weekend fight news...

-- Phil Baroni scored his third-straight win as a welterweight on Friday with his unanimous decision victory over WEC vet Olaf Alfonso at Palace Fighting Championships 10 in Lemoore, California. Baroni later apologized for his performance, saying he couldn't find his rhythm in the fight.

-- Jeff Monson choked out MMA cautionary tale Mark Kerr in the first round of their bout at Don King Productions' debut Vengeance FC card, held last night in Concord, North Carolina. It was Kerr's ninth loss in his last 11 fights.

(Melendez - and his hair - in need of an opponent.)

--- Strikeforce lightweight title-holder Gilbert "El Niño" Melendez was supposed to fight Jorge Masvidal at the Strikeforce/EliteXC March 29th event - but the fight has been cancelled due to a shin injury Masvidal received during "Strikeforce at the Dome" in Washington. The injury came in a fight against Ryan Healy, which Masvidal won by decision. A replacement could be named soon to battle Melendez since he is one of the top fighters on the card. Middleweight champ Frank Shamrock will put his title on the line against Cung Le in the highly-anticipated main event.

Melendez is 13-1, snapping a 13-fight win streak and picking up his first loss at "Yarennoka!" on New Year’s Eve. He lost via decision to PRIDE vet Mitsuhiro Ishida. The lightweight has seen success almost everywhere he's fought, including Strikeforce, PRIDE, WEC, and ROTR. El Niño's ex-opponent, Masvidal, has seen recent success in Strikeforce and BodogFIGHT and boasts wins over dudes like Joe Lauzon and Yves Edwards.

--- We reported the surprising retirement of welterweight star Paul "Semtex" Daley earlier this week. The out-of-nowhere announcement was posted on Cage Warriors' message board. While speculation to Daley's retirement at age 25 ranged from him being bored with the sport to a ploy to pull in a huge payday from the highest bidder, it's still unclear to why he would do this or if it was just a hoax. Sherdog was able to reach FX-3 promoter Paul James, who confirmed Daley would be giving up his EliteXC position after he fulfills his contract on March 29th. And in a text message exchange with Daley, they say the fighter refused to talk about the decision because he didn't want to make a big deal of it. Well, it is a big deal to us when a star athlete who could dominate their division decides to drop it all.