Bellator 85 Championships Discussion

Bellator will premiere on Spike TV on Jan. 17 in a 10 p.m. ET time slot, kicking off a 12-event eighth season for the promotion.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney and Spike President Kevin Kay on Tuesday announced the news on a conference call with media members.

The date for the season's first show is a change from a previously reported one of Jan. 10, which Bellator had requested with the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board. Instead, the season premiere, Bellator 85, takes place a week later in Irvine, Calif., at Bren Events Center on the UC-Irvine campus.

Kay said the 10 p.m. ET start time for Bellator events throughout the season allows the promotion to have Impact Wrestling as lead-in programming from 8-10 p.m. ET each week.

"We have four to four and a half hours of great combat sports programming that we're extraordinarily excited about," Kay said.

The opening bout for Bellator 85 will be a featherweight title fight between champion Pat Curran and top contender Patricio "Pitbull" Freire. The card will close with a lightweight title fight between champ Michael Chandler and tournament winner Rick Hawn.

In between the two title fights, Rebney said, will be light heavyweight tournament fights between Seth Petruzelli and Mike Guymon, plus the Bellator debut of Renato "Babalu" Sobral in the tourney in a fight against Russian Mikhail Zayats.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/2012/12/bellator-premieres-jan-17-on-spike-announces-lineups-for-first-two-cards

The latest Bellator 85 card now includes:
Champ Michael Chandler vs. Rick Hawn - for lightweight title
Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Mikhail Zayats - light heavyweight tournament opening round
Champ Pat Curran vs. Patricio Freire - for featherweight title
Seth Petruzelli vs. jacob noe
Mike Guymon vs. TBA
Jason Lambert vs.Hector Ramirez
emanuel newton vs ATANAS DJAMBAZOV confirmed


another talent m-1 looses to bellator, mikhail zayats enter the lhw gp...

great first fight card for spike, really looking foward to it, and the big surprise is the addition of zayats a very underrated fighter imo....even a new side logo

That is STACKED.

Sonatine wrote:That is STACKED.

Absolutely. Great debut card for Bellator.

Babalu vs. Zayats is a great opening round fight in the LHW tournament. Top 8 vs. Top 14.

i think mikahail can give babalu a run for his money...

ATANAS DJAMBAZOV 17-2 vs emanuel newton 18-7 rumored for bellator 85...

MR.WILLIE wrote:ATANAS DJAMBAZOV 17-2 vs emanuel newton 18-7 rumored for bellator 85...

Very nice, Djambazov would be a killer addition.

I just wish they wouldn't give a spot away to Petruzelli and just have Godbeer drop back down to 205 and have his spot instead.

MR.WILLIE wrote:i think mikahail can give babalu a run for his money...

Yup. It is def. an interesting fight.

January 17th, 2013
Irvine, CA - Bren Event Center

Bellator Lightweight title match

Michael Chandler vs Rick Hawn

Champion
Michael Chandler
10 - 0 - 0
26 yrs
5'8'
155lbs
Association: Xtreme Couture
Style: Wrestling
Strengths: Takedowns, Ground and Pound, Finisher
Last 3 wins: Akihiro Gono, Eddie Alvarez, Patricky Freire
No Losses
Win rate stats:
4 (T)KOS (40.00%)
4 SUBMISSIONS (40.00%)
2 DECISIONS (20.00%)

Challenger
Rick Hawn
"Genghis"
14 - 1 - 0
36 yrs
5'9'
155lbs
Association: Tristar Gym
Style: Judo
Strengths: Clinch, Boxing, Presses Action
Last 3 Wins: Brent Weedman, Lloyd Woodard, Ricardo Tirloni
Only Loss: Jay Hieron
Win Rate:
9 (T)KOS (64.29%)
0 SUBMISSIONS (.00%)
5 DECISIONS (35.71%)
Loss Rate:
0 (T)KOS (.00%)
0 SUBMISSIONS (.00%)
1 DECISIONS (100.00%)

Bellator Featherweight Championship

Patricio Freire vs Pat Curran

Challenger
Patricio Freire
"Pitbull"
Country: Brazil
17 - 1 - 0
25 yrs
145lbs
5'5'
Association: Team Nogueira / Pitbull Brothers
Style: Striker
Strengths: Striking, Dictates pace, Finisher
Last 3 Wins: Daniel Straus, Wilson Reis, Georgi Karakhanyan
Only Loss: Joe Warren
Win Rate:
6 (T)KOS (35.29%)
7 SUBMISSIONS (41.18%)
4 DECISIONS (23.53%)
Loss Rate:
0 (T)KOS (.00%)
0 SUBMISSIONS (.00%)
1 DECISIONS (100.00%)

Champion
Pat Curran
Country: USA
17 - 4 - 0
25yrs
5'10'
145
Association: Team Curran
Style: Wrestler
Strengths: Wrestling, KO power, Submissions
Last 3 Wins: Joe Warren, Marlon Sandro, Ronnie Mann
Last 3 Losses: Eddie Alvarez, Travis Perzynski, Charles Diaz
Win Rate:
5 (T)KOS (29.41%)
5 SUBMISSIONS (29.41%)
7 DECISIONS (41.18%)
Loss Rate:
0 (T)KOS (.00%)
1 SUBMISSIONS (25.00%)
3 DECISIONS (75.00%)

Who are Taking The Belts Home?

carlos eduardo 9-2 is rumored to face petruzelli...

now that king mo has an opponent, eduardo vs seth makes alot of sense...

Going w/ the champs to defend their belts.

I've got Hawn and Curran.

Hawn will give out Judo slams like he's calling numbers at bingo and then knock you the fuck out before you can even mark anything on your dumb bingo board. KO in the second round.

Curran is not gonna give up the opportunity to fill up his truck with more gas while wearing the Bellator LW belt, he's gonna fill his veins with diesel fuel (not from Wiuff's gas station though) and run Pitbull off the road with a decision victory.

Hawn and Curran. Hawn is going to be an absolute beast at LW and Curran might very well be untouchable as well for as long as he's in Bellator. I think Straus might be bigger challenge than Pitbull, honestly.

Also, Iron Nakamura has been confirmed for a BW tournament fight on this card.

mikhail was beating magalhaes...im going with the underdog and pick zayats to beat babalu...

MR.WILLIE wrote:

mikhail was beating magalhaes...im going with the underdog and pick zayats to beat babalu...

I don´t want to call Vinny lucky but he was clearly losing to both Zayats and Nemkov and also gassing when he pulled off those spectacular wins. Zayats is very good and could go all the way to the final.

Lofgren wrote:

MR.WILLIE wrote:

mikhail was beating magalhaes...im going with the underdog and pick zayats to beat babalu...

I don´t want to call Vinny lucky but he was clearly losing to both Zayats and Nemkov and also gassing when he pulled off those spectacular wins. Zayats is very good and could go all the way to the final.

lol...i agree nemkov was dominating him and zayats was kicking the shit out of him, zayats imo will outstruck babalu, but please dont go to the ground with him....

im curious to see wtf happened between zayats and m-1??? he was one of their price fighters and now he has jumped ship to bellator along with the other russians....m-1 has to step up their game, beacuse they are loosing alot of talent specially to bellator...

I think it´s all about the money. Bellator offers a huge paycheck to the tourney winners and fighters like Zayats and Volkov know they´re good enough to win the tourneys. Tiger and Slava are also good enough to win the tourney but they had some bad luck imo.

Can't wait for this next month yow title matches and a light heavyweight tournament opening fight.
Don't forget to vote if you have not already

Hawn and Pitbull by whatever they want.

Bump

emanuel newton 18-7 vs atanas djambazov 17-2

seth petruzelli 14-6 vs jacob noe 8-1

both added to the card...

http://www.bellator.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23600&ATCLID=205823796

^LHW tournament is going to be great. Really looking forward to it.

Good tournament, outside of Petruzelli/Noe.

Is Lins still injured?