So Bellator once again had a good season so I thought it would be appropriate to look over all of the details and developments this season:
Tournaments
Last season Bellator found the right balance of tournaments for a season with four 8 man tournaments and two 4 man tournaments. They decided to do the same this season with eight man tournaments at featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and heavyweight along with four man tournaments in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. There were good results with the featherweight tournament going to Daniel Weichel. The finals for the lightweight tournament will be Patricky Freire versus Marcin Held and the welterweight finals will be Andrey Koreshkov versus Adam McDonough. Then in the middleweight finals, Brett Cooper will face Brandon Halsey.
Injury Bug
Now we come to the reason why half of the tournament finals didn’t actually take place in season ten…injuries. Injuries to finalists in the lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight finals resulted in the finals being postponed to a later date, probably during the summer series. Not only did injuries postpone tournament finals but it also postponed title defenses. Bantamweight Champion Eduardo Dantes, late in the season resulted in an interim championship being created in the weight class. This was also the case in the lightweight division.
Title Fights
Despite injuries, there were some good title fights. Dantes defended his title earlier in the season against Anthony Leone and Pat Curran regained his featherweight title from Daniel Straus. Then witnessed a new welterweight champion crowned when Douglas Lima defeated Rick Hawn for the vacant title. Also in the middleweight division, Alexander Shlemenko defended his title against Brennan Ward and Emanuel Newton unified his Interim Light Heavyweight Championship with Attila Vegh‘s championship to become the new light heavyweight champion. Then in the heavyweight division, Vitaly Minakov defended his title against Cheick Kongo.
Pay-Per-View Debut
Finally Bellator made its’ pay-per-view debut in a main event where Quinton “Rampage” Jackson won the Season 10 Light Heavyweight Tournament by defeating Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal in a rather controversial decision. Then in the co-main event, Michael Chandler was again on the wrong end of a split decision for the Interim Lightweight Championship when Will Brooks won in what could once again be considered a controversial judges call. In another first, we got to see Tito Ortiz return to his winning ways when he submitted middleweight champion Shlemenko. Also we got to see a dramatic heavyweight final when Alexander Volkov submitted Blagoi Ivanov after a dramatic tournament. Lastly we got to see up and comer Michael Page defeat Ricky Rainey via decisive TKO.
What did you think of this season of Bellator? Leave a comment!