Bellator plans third 'Summer Series,' target heavy, light-heavy, bantam tourneys

With summer just a few months away, Bellator is gearing up for the third installment of its "Summer Series."

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said the promotion, which is soon to wrap its eighth season on Spike TV, is planning eight-man competitions in the bantamweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.

"I would love to do heavyweight over the summer, so that's where I've been focused with the team at talent development," Rebney told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

The promotion needs contenders for its champs. Following the retirement of titleholder Cole Konrad, which came this past September, Bellator utilized a tournament to crown a new heavyweight kingpin in Season 7. Alexander Volkov took the title from Richard Hale at Bellator 84 and has yet to defend his belt.

A light-heavyweight tournament would also bring the next challenge for newly minted champ Atilla Veigh, who took the belt from Christian M'Pumbu at Bellator 91. The winner of the current Season 8 tourney will be his first test.

Bantamweight champ Eduardo Dantas, meanwhile, made his first title defense this past month at Bellator 89, knocking out former training partner Marcos Galvao, who won the Season 6 competition. He also awaits his next challenge.

"We've got a lot of weight divisions potentially doing a tournament," Rebney said. "The cornerstone of everything that we've got going on with Spike now is I can get so many tournaments into these different packages. We've doing five tournaments now that are going to finish up this first season on Spike. I'd like to get two, maybe three in over the summer, and four or five in the fall.

"This is what I've been waiting for in keeping the champs really busy. So that's all about getting these tournaments done."

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/03/bellator-plans-third-summer-series-target-heavy-light-heavy-bantam-tourneys

Great to hear HW and LHW tournaments will be in the summer series. I was hoping for that.

^^^makes sense since there are challengers for the titles at MW, WW, LW and FW

Didn't expect another LHW tourney so soon but HW and BW were givens.

Best news is that the summer series should be longer than just three cards this year.