A heavyweight fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione has been announced for the Bellator 180 pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden in New York City on June 24th.
The bout will serve as the co-main event of the show, leading into the headlining grudge match between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva.
Bellator had originally put together the fight as the headliner for Bellator 172 in February, but the match-up had to be scrapped on the day of the event due to Mitrione suffering from kidney stones.
Recently there had been rumors that perhaps Bellator would look to replace Mitrione with a different opponent for Fedor next time out, so with that in mind, Mitrion is naturally over the moon that he is still getting the opportunity to fight the Russian legend.
“I’m so excited to come back to the East Coast and compete again,” Mitrione told the New York Post. “I spent two years with the New York Giants, all my family is out there and I’m ecstatic that they will get to be there and watch me punch the greatest heavyweight of all time in the face.
“Bellator has been awesome in supporting me throughout this whole ordeal with the kidney stones and knowing that I’m the sexiest opponent for Fedor. I’m glad we were able to keep this fight intact and putting it on this monstrous pay-per-view event.”
With Sonnen Vs Silva and now Fedor Vs Mitrione Bellator have the makings of an enticing PPV line-up here, and with the other stars they have on tap these days, it’s likely that there are more major match-ups still to be announced in the days and weeks ahead.
