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Discuss and post all non major and event specific Bellator news here. We might do some individual card discussion if they're not as attractive.

Rooting for Killa B, Sandro, and Galvao.

Rooting against Falcao.

No real horse in the 155 race.

You got to root for a guy like Brian Foster after all he's went through. Brain Hemorrhage and burst testicle. He took a shot to his humanness and manhood. I think Carlos Indio will win 170 though. He has decent grappling to supplement his elite striker. He's vicious too. If he meets Foster it'll be fireworks.

Rogers is a great guy, special ed teacher, very accessible on the UG. He's my guy at 185, although I think Bruno Santos wins. Unless they can somehow woo Khalidov. He's a sick athlete and technician. I'd be rooting for him and think he'd win. Falcao is overrated so I think we'll both get our wish that he loses. Lost 4 in Brasil.

Oh so many horses in 155 for me. Love Tirloni, Pitbull, Cupcake, and Michel. Sarnavskiy is exciting too. That will be a great tournament after the 1st round.

Of course I have a love affair with Popo Bezerra. That's well documented. He's a diverse striker, uses faints so well, and is extremely well-rounded.

I don't care too much about the 135 lbers although Ratinho fights every second to finish.

War Machine is impossible for me to root for. There's no skill in what he does in the cage and he's still a douche. He's disrespecting other Bellator fighters on Twitter as we speak and he's going nowhere in this thing.

Any chance of Rumble getting in at 185? Or even 205?

You would have to figure the possibility of fighting once every few weeks would have him keep his weight down.

Brian Foster moves beautifully. Tough, tough breaks in the UFC (even aside from the brain and testes).

War Machine is beautiful beautiful. Best looking man ever, IMONOHOMO

CPT wrote:Any chance of Rumble getting in at 185? Or even 205?

You would have to figure the possibility of fighting once every few weeks would have him keep his weight down.

You'd have to figure requiring him to make weight 3 straight times or an entire 8-man tournament gets de-valued would make him too much of a potential liability for Bellator to even seriously consider.

Anyways, they probably have already made their final selections, they just haven't announced them yet.

I'm guessing Sarnavskiy already signed but BFC doesn't want to risk getting in hot water w/ M1 again by announcing it before his contract expires.

Who the final entrant is at 185, your guess is practically as good as mine. Khalidov said before the last tournament he wasn't participating because of Ramadan. I guess that was b.s. if he doesn't join this time.

I'd like to follow this season of Bellator. Good thread. Appreciate you fellas' insight.

Any word on possible super fights for the Bellator champs? Or dates for the previous tournament winners to get their shots?

One knock on Bellator seems to be that the champs don't actually get tested often enough. Once these guys become champs, they seem to only fight once or twice a year. A lot of them are guys who could use the extra experience too. Is there a way to fix this that still fits in the Bellator model?

Yes, holding a tournament per division per season. And 2 during the summer series. Then every champion would defend his title 2-3 times per year, the industry standard. Bellator is currently working on that solution to the problem. They officially increased their tourneys from 4 to 5 this season, and as I alluded to the OP, are contemplating adding a sixth.

In the meantime, Konrad, M'Pumbu, and even Chandler could use a super fight, so like you said they aren't receiving an inadequate amount of work.

Konrad is the most underused marquee fighter in Bellator. I actually think he's one of the top 10 heavyweights in the world and will vie for the top spot in the future, but he's just not perceived that way because of his infrequent appearances, organization association, body type, style, etc. He has top 5 p4p wrestling credentials in MMA and has shown off his footwork, reach, and striking technique against Buentello and others. He can't wait for Big Monster to beat Prindle otherwise we're talking about 10-11 months between fights. Pit him against Fedor in Dream and if he loses fans can write it off as Fedor being back.

As far as the other champions not mentioned (Lombard, Makovsky, Askren, and Warren) go, they will defend their title in the near future. Warren is already scheduled to defend against Curran on March 9th. When Curran wins that, he'll have Pitbull waiting for him. Then when Pitbull wins that he'll have Bezerra, Spoon, Sandro, or Straus.

The Bellator 61 event is stacked:

Pat Curran vs. Joe Warren
Marlon Sandro vs. Roberto Vargas
Wagnney Fabiano vs. Ronnie Mann
Daniel Straus vs. Jeremy Spoon
Popo Bezerra vs. Genair Da Silva
------
Sean McCorkle vs. TBA
Shamar Bailey vs. TBA

I'm assuming that's where the cut-off will be based on fight quality, meaning that 5 fights will be televised this season.

BTW, they're delaying on announcing the final member of the MW tournament, so one can deduce they're at least attempting to acquire Khalidov or Marquardt.

I read that Lombard is fighting Khalidov in KSW in May. It was one of those reports in another language that hasn't been picked up anywhere else, but if true, that would have to impact his fight with Shlemenko (maybe he does that first?) and any possibility of Khalidov being in the tournament.

I call b.s. about that report.

First, like you said there is a scheduling conflict w/ the Shlemenko fight. That's projected to go down in March or April. Don't know Lombard will win or what kind of shape he'll be in subsequently.

Second, I doubt Bellator would loan out their current most marketable champion to face an opponent in his own home country who is superb in his own right. They'd risk marring his rep and devaluing yet another one of their titles (as FW and LHW are right now).

There's not anything in it for Bellator unless KSW offered them a gargantuan sum of money.

I think the actual message got lost in translation.

The truth is probably, a. them brainstorming ideals for Chalidow opponents, or b. Chalidow is a tourney entrant and they're already assuming he'll win it to face Lombard.

Usually I would pay it no mind, but Lombard obviously likes to fight a lot, and has fought outside of Bellator as much as he has in it since winning the MW Tournament. He hasn't fought anyone as good as Khalidov, granted, but there was a possibility of it being true.

You could be right about it being lost in translation or even just fabricated by the Polish source. Since nothing more has come of it in the last few days, there's probably nothing to it.

Updates:

- Alvarez will be rematching Aoki sometime in April.
- Norman Paraisy was the final member announced in the MW tournament.
- Josh Shockley will be Shamar Bailey's opponent on the debut card (Shockley will probably win).
- In April, Bellator will be going back to Canada (this time Windsor, Ontario) where they've had all sellout shows in the past.

Bellator 61, scheduled for March 16th in Louisana:

Big Monster Santos vs. Eric Prindle II (Season 5 HW tourney finale redo)
Maiquel Falcao vs. Norman Paraisy
Brian Rogers vs. Vitor Vianna
Vyacheslav Vasilevsky vs. Victor O'Donnell
Giva Santana vs. Bruno Santos

They should get Cole Konrad a super fight on one of the early cards, since it will be a few months before he can fight the tourney winner.

The guy fought 7 times in 2010 and once in 2011. Unless there's an injury issue I'm not aware of, that's unacceptable for a young guy needing experience.

You know I agree.

I was Dreaming (pun intended) of a match-up with Fedor, but one which would take place in Bellator that would be realistic and palatable is Konrad vs. Tony Lopez.

Lopez is fresh off a win against hot prospect Shamil Abdurahimov and has fought in Bellator before. He lost that match against Raphael Davis, but that was at LHW, and he's been more successful at HW with wins over the aforementioned Abdurahimov, plus a pair over both Beltran and East. He's also beat Kingsbu, Nemkov, and Lambert. He lost an SD to Kyle at HW. He seems like the right fit because he'd be enough of a test, but not too much.

Going by their track record and self-purported aversion to super-fights after the M'Pumbu debacle, I'm guessing Konrad waits for the winner of Monster/Prindle. Best case there is that Monster secures a quick sub and could accommodate a quick turnaround for a fight around the end of April. Then we're talking "only" an 8 month gap. Then he'd "only" wait another 7-8 months approximately, IF they held a HW tourney during the summer series. Just think if they wait until fall.

Dunno where else to post this, but I read that Eddie Alvarez is joining the Blackzilians.

What does "Blackzilian" mean? Why'd they choose it? It's not racial, with Van Arsedale and some others.