Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice? Just a week out from Bellator’s second attempt to host their first ever pay-per-view event the promotion disaster has struck with the news that the event’s headliner, lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, has had to pull out of his trilogy fight with Michael Chandler due to suffering a concussion in training.
Bellator haven’t officially confirmed the news, but Sherdog.com first broke the news, citing a source close to the booking.
There’s a strong sense of deja vu here as in November of last year Bellator experienced similar misfortune when Tito Ortiz was forced out of his main event fight with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.
On that occasion it resulted in the pay-per-view being scrapped altogether, with the event then being switched to Spike TV Instead.
As for next weekend’s event, it’s not clear how Bellator will proceed at this stage, but it is believed that season 9 lightweight tournament winner Will Brooks will now step in to fight Alvarez.
There was already a big question mark hovering over the Bellator 120 events ability to draw a decent number on PPV, and leading with Chandler Vs Brooks would almost guarantee that it ends up being a flop.
The promotion may opt instead to push a light-heavyweight tournament bout featuring Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal up from the co-main event duties to the event headliner instead. Even if that is the case they will still struggle to shake the feeling that this event is now the PPV equivalent of ‘damaged goods’.
Adding to their woes, a lightweight tournament fight between Patricky ‘Pitbull’ Freire and Marcin Held has also been canceled from the Bellator 120 show after ‘Pitbull’ also suffered an injury in training.
That fight had been expected to take place on the prleiminary portion of the card which was due to air live on Spike TV in the lead up to the pay-per-view.
