Bellator champ Eduardo Dantas injured, Rafael Silva title fight pushed to 2014

Bellator bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas won't be in action again until 2014, Bellator MMA officials today announced.

According to today's announcement, the 24-year-old suffered an ankle injury that will keep him out of action for the rest of the year. His planned title fight with recent tournament winner Rafael Silva will now take place in early 2014.

"Eduardo Dantas is one of the most explosive champions in MMA, and while this injury is a setback, we all expect Eduardo back, better than ever in 2014," Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney stated.

An exact timetable wasn't given for the fighter's return.

Dantas (15-3 MMA, 5-0 BMMA), a past tournament winner who registered his first title defense earlier this year with a knockout of Marcos Galvao, is currently ranked No. 9 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com MMA bantamweight rankings.

Dantas is 8-1 in his past nine fights, and the lone defeat came to fast-rising Tyson Nam at Shooto Brazil 33 in August 2012. He rebounded with the win over Galvao, which moved him to 5-0 under the Bellator banner.

While Silva (21-3 MMA, 2-0 BMMA) gets the next crack at Dantas, the upcoming winner of Bellator's Season 9 tournament final of Joe Warren (9-3 MMA, 7-2 BMMA) vs. Travis Marx (21-4 MMA, 3-1 BMMA) will be next in line.

For more on Bellator's upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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Recomme

well, this sucks total ass