Bellator made their live debut on last night and offered up a relatively entertaining night of action.
The main televised card looked to start off on a strong footing with a featherweight title fight between Pat Curran and Patricio Freire, and after a slow first round it came it life. A hard-fought five round battle ensued with both men trading shots back-and-forth with Curran eventually retaining his belt, but only by split decision (48-47 x2, 47-48).
There was an upset in the light-heavyweight tournament quarter-finals when one of Bellator’s big-name signings for this season Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral was TKO’d in the first round by Mikhail Zavats. A spinning backfist had left ‘Babalu’ dazed in the closing stages of the round and Zavats followed up with punches for the finish.
Another notable name on-board for this season Seth Petruzelli also failed to make an impact on the night, losing swiftly by ground and pound TKO to Jacob Noe with just 2.51mins on the clock.
That leaves only ‘King Mo’ as a well known star left in Bellator’s 205lb tournament at this early stage – he’ll compete in a couple of weeks time.
Finally the main event of the evening saw lightweight champion Michael Chandler successfully defend his title after getting the better of challenger Rick Hawn, finishing with a rear-naked choke midway through the second round.
Now comes the wait to see what kind of TV ratings Bellator’s pulled for their first ever event on Spike and of course we’ll let you know as soon as we get our hands on them.
In the mean time check out all of last night’s results below.
—
Main Card:
Michael Chandler def. Rick Hawn via submission (rear-naked choke) (R2, 3:07)
Jacob Noe def. Seth Petruzelli via first-round TKO (2:51)
Mikhail Zayats def. Renato Sobral via first-round TKO (4:49)
Pat Curran def. Patricio Freire via split decision (47-48, 48-47, 48-47)
Prelims:
Aaron Miller def. Joe Camacho via unanimous decision (30-27 x3)
Jason Lambert def. Hector Ramirez via submission (inverted straight armbar) (R1, 3:59)
J.J. Ambrose def. Brian Warren via submission (guillotine) (R2, 0:50)
Emanuel Newton def. Atanas Djambazov via submission (rear-naked choke) (R2, 2:21)
Savant Young def. Mike Guymon via second-round KO (0:48)
Joe Williams def. Jamie Yager via first-round TKO (4:02)
Cleber Luciano def.Mario Navarro via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
