In the main card, Steve Carl faced off against Douglas Lima and dropped a unanimous decision to the Brazilian challenger. Luis Santos stepped into the cage against former welterweight title challenger, Dan Hornbuckle, and won a unanimous decision. In more exciting action, Ben Saunders, in just his second Bellator fight, defeated Chris Cisneros with a brutal knockout in the closing seconds of the final round. In the main bout of the evening, Chris Lozano won a unanimous decision over Brent Weedman. All the winners will advance to the semifinals of the welterweight tournament, and the winner will earn a shot at undefeated champion, Ben “Funky” Askren.
Bellator as an organization has grown immensely over the past three years. CEO Bjorn Rebney has garnered immense respect from his fighters, like Bellator Heavyweight, Ron Sparks.
“Bellator really cares about their fighters,” Sparks said. “We are taken care of.”
Sparks isn’t the only one who feels the need to speak out on behalf of Bellator’s upper management. Lightweight titleholder, Eddie Alvarez has spoken out on more than one occasion about his love for Bellator, and even his dislike for the way the UFC is run.
The draw for Bellator isn’t in its fighters, that much is obvious. Bellator has a lot of great talent, but they just don’t have stars like the UFC does, yet. If the UFC keeps dropping talented fighters like they have been of late, Bellator is sure to come up behind them quickly in terms of major market share. Bellator’s takeover of the MMA scene is at least five years off, and I don’t expect it to happen given the insane growth of the UFC in the last ten years, but it is possible.
If Dana White keeps letting big names like Nate Marquardt, and Paul Daley go, whether warranted or not, other organizations like Bellator will snatch them up and that will give them a much bigger draw.> Buy TapouT shirts & apparel through Pro Fighting Fans as well as great MMA clothing as well as Round 5 MMA toys online!
The tournament style of Bellator is the main reason for the viewings it gets. Add in the fact that it is on a major cable channel like MTV2, and the fights are free, and that makes for some pretty good competition for the market share.
Bellator is a really interesting take on MMA. In an age where it’s not possible to hold tournaments in one night, Bellator provides a nice break from the sometimes-confusing matchmaking of other organizations. There is never a dispute in Bellator about who deserves a title shot, because the fighter who gets the shot, has fought his way through a tournament to get there. Sure, there are still discussions of whether the same fighter would make it past a certain guy in the tournament, if done over, but it is almost never questioned that a certain fighter is getting the shot.
Bellator is here to stay. I don’t believe it will ever overtake the UFC, but it has carved out its own niche in the MMA world, and will continue to operate side-by-side the UFC when all the other promotions eventually bow to Zuffa.
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