Bellator News

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

At this past Saturday’s Bellator ‘Dynamite’ event it was announced that Fedor Emelianenko will be headlining an event in Japan, put one by the former boss of PRIDE FC, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, on New Years Eve. The card will air on Spike TV. It seemed like the popular thought was that he’d finally sign with the UFC, but everyone was duped.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

This past weekend, at Bellator ‘Dynamite’, fans who tuned in were treated to fireworks, Crazy Pride lady, kickboxing and MMA. We also saw a one-night light heavyweight tournament, featuring four of the promotions best 205’ers. Former UFC fighter Phil Davis ended up winning the whole thing and will now face the champ, Liam McGeary, next.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Bellator MMA welterweight Paul Daley fought in the GLORY kickboxing ring this past Saturday at ‘Dynamite.’ He took on Fernando Gomez, who put up a tough fight but ultimately lost to Daley via unanimous decision. Daley is already in line for a shot at Bellator’s welterweight title but recently said he’d be more than willing to challenge for the GLORY belt as well, if the promotions let him.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

This past Saturday we finally got to see what Bellator’s ‘Dynamite’ event would actually look like. There were a lot of questions leading into the cross promoted event, featuring both MMA fights in a cage and GLORY kickboxing matches in a ring. The night also featured an old school one-night tournament in which former UFC fighter Phil Davis ended up winning. In the night’s main event champ Liam McGeary took on MMA vet Tito Ortiz. Ortiz seemed to have control of the fight, taking Liam down and working from top position, but eventually got trapped in an inverted triangle and tapped out.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Former UFC lightweight Josh Thomson made his Bellator debut this past Saturday at the ‘Dynamite’ event and won, submitting Mike Bronzoulis in the third round. Thomson has had nothing but great things to say about his new home and apparently, according to MMAFighting, he also faired much better with sponsorship money than he would have in the UFC.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

At this past Saturday’s Bellator ‘Dynamite’ event the light heavyweight champion Liam McGeary successfully defended his belt, submitting MMA vet Tito Ortiz with an inverted triangle. The fight started out with Ortiz getting an early takedown and it looked like it was going to be a classic Tito fight, full of ground and pound and top control. However, McGeary had different plans.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Bellator added another big fight to their already stacked Bellator 145: Vengeance event. The show will take place on November 6, at the Scottrade Center in Saint Louis. On Tuesday the promotion announced that a lightweight rematch between Michael Chandler and David Rickels will take place on the main card of the big event. In the main event we’ll see a title fight between featherweight champion Patricio Freire and Daniel Straus. The lightweight title fight will also be on the line when the champ Will Brooks takes on Marcin Held in the co-main.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

This past Saturday the combat sports world watched as kickboxing and MMA collided at Bellator ‘Dynamite.’ On the MMA side of things we were treated to an old school one-night tournament featuring the best light heavyweights the promotion had to offer. In the opening fights, Phil Davis took out former champ Emanuel Newton and ‘King Mo’ defeated Linton Vassell.

BJPENN.COM News - September 21, 2015

Bellator has been known to host some questionable fights in their history. Kimbo Slice went toe-to-toe with Ken Shamrock earlier this year in the headliner of Bellator 138 ahead of featherweight champion Patricio Freire. Most believe that there is no place for fights like that in MMA, but as long as there are no title implications it isn’t doing anybody harm. Former UFC champion Frank Shamrock was about to come out of retirement for one of those fights, however, as he was originally supposed to be the one to face Tito Ortiz at “DYNMAITE”. Instead, Ortiz chose to aim for gold by fighting Liam Mcgeary. Now, Shamrock only has two names he would come out of retirement for: Dana White and Donald Trump.

BJPENN.COM News - September 21, 2015

World Series of Fighting and Bellator both ran major events this weekend and two Renzo Gracie fighters brought some gold back to the gym with them! Liam Mcgeary stepped into the Bellator cage on Saturday evening to defend his light heavyweight championship against the legendary Tito Ortiz. Ortiz was looking to secure gold for the first time since his dominant run in the octagon with the UFC and was well on his way of doing that when he blasted the champion with shots on the ground. Ortiz left himself susceptible to strikes when the tried to implement his ground and pound gameplan and walked into an inverted triangle choke! The jiu-jitsu paid off for Mcgeary as it put another “W” in his record.

BJPENN.COM News - September 20, 2015

Fedor Emelianenko dropped a bombshell on the mixed martial arts community at “DYNAMITE” on Saturday evening when it was announced he would NOT be fighting for either Bellator or the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Instead, “The Last Emperor” will be squaring off in the main-event of brand new Japan based MMA promotion! The card is set to take place on New Year’s Eve and will mark Fedor’s first fight in Japan since 2011.

BJPENN.COM News - September 20, 2015

When Reebok and Ultimate Fighting Championship signed an exclusive in-octagon sponsorship deal, fighters were reluctant to celebrate. Fighters like Urijah Faber would be forbidden from promoting his clothing line, Torque, in the octagon like he used to in earlier UFC and WEC days. Miesha Tate and Brendan Schaub sponsorship income would decrease by at least 80% due to the inability to rock external sponsorships in the octagon. UFC lightweight Josh Thomson was one of the first fighters to make the choice not to re-sign with the UFC and jump ship to Bellator, following Phil Davis. On Saturday night, “The Real Punk” informed MMA Fighting that three sponsors alone paid him more than $35,000 for his fight on Saturday at Bellator’s “DYNAMITE” event!