Bellator 94 Results

Last night we learned who will be the next challengers to Bellator’s 155lb and 205lb title belts along with experiencing a night of quality MMA action and no small amount of controversy.

Well, we were in Florida.

In the Light Heavyweight tournament final Emanuel Newton and Mikail Zayats served up a back and forth match, with Newton seeming the fresher fighter towards the end en route to an exciting unanimous decision victory.

Newton now proceeds to face champion Attila Vegh in a rematch from their 2012 tournament bout where Vegh walked away with a split decision victory. Given Newton’s form and the potential for a five round fight, that is a very interesting fight.

The Lightweight tournament final ended in controversial fashion as following a close first round arguably edged by Saad Awad, the second round went in similar fashion until the closing seconds where Awad and David Rickels unloaded on each other with Awad suffering a knockdown right on the bell.

The referee stepped into a wave the fighters back to their corner but then decided that as Awad didn’t jump immediately to his feet and do a little dance, that he was calling a TKO.

Even Rickels was surprised by the call and Awad – who was never out and could hardly be accused of failing to defend himself intelligently AFTER THE BELL – protested the decision, but the referee stuck by his guns.

Rickels advances to face champion Michael Chandler, but in all fairness that fight should have gone to a third round with the fight evenly poised at a round apiece.

The main card was rounded out by two tournament qualifiers, with Luis Melo earning his way into the next Welterweight tournament with a third round submission of Trey Houston and Rodrigo Lima earned a unanimous decision over Ronnie Mann (making his Bantamweight debut) to win a spot in the upcoming Summer Series tournament.

On the undercard, female standouts Jessica Aguilar and Felice Herrig earned hard fought split decision victories over Patricia Vidonic and Heather Clark respectively, with Aguilar returning from 10 months on the shelf and Herrig dealing with a notable height disadvantage and some after-the-bell shenanigans en route to victory. All in a days work for the last daughter of Krypton…

MAIN CARD
• Emanuel Newton def. Mikhail Zayats via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) – to claim Season 8 light heavyweight tournament title
• David Rickels def. Saad Awad via TKO (punches) – Round 2, 5:00 – to claim Season 8 lightweight tournament title
• Luis Melo def. Trey Houston via submission (arm-triangle choke) – Round 3, 1:09
• Rodrigo Lima def. Ronnie Mann via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
PRELIMINARY CARD
• Julien Williams def. Kenny Moss via submission (guillotine choke) – Round 1, 3:19
• Augusto Sakai def. Rob Horton via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 4:01
• Jessica Aguilar def. Patricia Vidonic via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Joe Taimanglo def. Ronnie Rogers via submission (north-south choke) – Round 1, 1:27
• Edson Berto def. Bruno Carvalho via submission (heel hook) – Round 1, 1:27
• Patrick Cenoble vs. Tony Fryklund – results in a split draw (29-27, 27-29, 28-28)
• Felice Herrig def. Heather Clark via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)

Bellator 94: Awad vs. Rickels Preview

Bellator 94: Awad vs. Rickels
Thursday, March 28
Tampa, Florida

Having front loaded their debut season on Spike with title matches and experienced some injuries and upsets, Bellator are left with a very different show this week than might have been prophesied in January.

Featuring the Lightweight and Light Heavyweight tournament finals, we could easily have expected this card to be headlined by Muhammed Lawal vs. Renato Sobral for the 205lb tournament or Patricky Friere vs. Alexander Sarnavskiy for the 155lb honours. Shock defeats for the first pair and injuries to the lightweights mean we have a very different pair of finals, just as compelling for purists but undoubtedly less of a draw for casual fans.

Getting the headline nod is the Lightweight tourney final, where David Rickels (13-1) faces he real story of this competition, Saad Awad (14-4) who was only added to the brackets days before the tournament as a replacement for Friere.

You’ve got to love that kind of underdog story.

Rickels comes in on the back of three decision wins, following his Welterweight semifinal loss to Karl Amoussou at Bellator 69, while Awad boasts a six fight winning streak, all by stoppage. Even more impressively, Awad’s total cage time for this tournament is one minute and fourteen seconds with his quick KO stoppages of Will Brooks and Guilliame de Lorenzini being more impressive, if less educational than Rickels decisions over Lloyd Woodard and Jason Fischer.

However, Awad is still the outsider here as Rickels has the advantage in size and having defeated Lloyd Woodard and taken Amoussou to a split decision, he’s won at a higher level than Awad who looks to be one of those fighters who wins or loses in decisive fashion and his stoppage losses to the likes of Nam Phan and Joe Duarte pose questions about his durability.

Of course, in the name of fun finishes and the underdog story, I want Awad to win.

Our other tournament final, at 205lbs features Emanuele Newton (20-7-1) who is riding not only two stoppage wins in this tournament, including a first round, spinning backfist KO of Mo Lawal but an 8-1 run with the only loss via split decision to now champion Attila Vegh.

Across the cage is Mikhail Zayats (21-6) who also comes into the final with two stoppage wins in the tournament over Renato Sobral and Jacob Noe to make a currently live seven nil streak.

Both of these guys are experienced, well rounded finishers, who have each disposed of one of the tournament favourites apiece. All bets are off here, but I would say I’m not betting against any Russians this year.

The main card is rounded out with a welterweight bout between Trey Houston (10-1) and experienced Brazilian Luis Melo (28-11-3) and a late addition in the shape of Ronnie Mann (21-5-1) making his bantamweight debut against Team Nogueira prospect, Rodrigo Lima (10-1).

Sadly, the two interesting female bouts between top ranked Jessica Aguilar (14-4) and Patricia Vidonic (7-4) and Felice Herrig (8-4) versus Heather Clark (5-3) are stuck on the preliminary card, which affects the girls chances of getting more attention and sponsorship.

That said, the silver lining is that we in the UK will able to see their bouts on spike.com while there will be no legal way to watch the main card. That makes LOADS of sense.

Way to go, Bellator.

MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 10 p.m. ET)

• Saad Awad vs. David Rickels – lightweight tournament final
• Emanuel Newton vs. Mikhail Zayats – light heavyweight tournament final
• Trey Houston vs. Luis Melo
Rodrigo Lima vs. Ronnie Mann

PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 8 p.m. ET)
• Ivan Devalle vs. Rory Shallcross
• Heather Clark vs. Felice Herrig
• Patrick Cenoble vs. Tony Fryklund
• (James) Edson Berto vs. Bruno Carvalho
• Shah Bobonis vs. Joe Taimanglo
• Rob Horton vs. Augusto Sakai
• Jessica Aguilar vs. Patricia Vidonic
• Kenny Moss vs. Julien Williams

Bellator 91 Results: Vegh takes Title, Awad & Rickels progress

Last nights Bellator 91 event showed the benefit of staying active and grabbing your opportunities.

Following more than a year on the sidelines, Light Heavyweight champion Christian M’Pumbu couldn’t stand up to the assault of Attila Vegh and faded in the championship rounds allowing Vegh to score an emphatic unanimous decision victory and take the belt.

Vegh now waits on the winner of the Mikhail Zayats vs. Emanuele Newton tournament as his first challenger for the belt.

Given that the 205 final was clearly set up to feature Muhammed Lawal vs. Renato Sobral but the MMA Gods had other plans, we shouldn’t be at all surprised that the Lightweight tournament has seen its share of shocks as well.

My pre-tournament prediction was for a Patricky Friere vs. Alexander Sarnavskiy final but with both men injured, their replacements have had drastically different experiences.

Saad Awad stepped into the tournament on a day’s notice to replace Friere and blasted through his first round opponent to earn a semi-final slot with undefeated wunderkind Will Brooks.

Brooks was the heavy favourite for the fight, but Awad knocked him out in under a minute and now stands one win away from a shot at Michael Chandler’s title. Not bad for someone who wasn’t even meant to be in the tournament.

In the other semi-final, an injury to Alexander Sarnavskiy gave Jason Fischer a chance at revenge over David Rickels but the larger Rickels dominated en route to a solid decision victory.

That’s what I LOVE about the Bellator format… it never pans out the way you think it should and makes a mockery of big names while allowing unknown fighters to march into the spotlight on their own sweat and blood.

MMA as it should be, a meritocracy. I love it.

Full Results

MAIN CARD
• Attila Vegh def. Christian M’Pumbu via unanimous decision (48-47, 49-46, 50-45)
• Saad Awad def. Will Brooks via KO (strikes) – Round 1, 0:43
• David Rickels def. Jason Fischer via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
PRELIMINARY CARD
• Holly Holm def. Katie Merrill via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 3:02
• Blas Avena def. Lenny Lovato Jr. via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 1:41
• Andres Quintana def. Russell Wilson via TKO (strikes) – Round 3, 0:32
• Ed West def. Josh Montoya via KO (head kick) – Round 2, 2:51
• Adrian Cruz def. Nick Gonzalez via submission (scarf hold armlock) – Round 2, 3:00
• Josh Appelt def. Josh Lanier via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 0:16
• Brennan Ward def. Yair Moguel via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 0:57