The season seven finale of Bellator was last in Hammond, Indiana and it was also an end of an era as this was to be the last Bellator fight on MTV 2. Starting first with the undercard fights that were shown online at Spike.Com.
At Featherweight, Robert White made his professional debut in MMA as he took on Kenny Booker. These two battled for three rounds with White winning by unanimous decision (29-28) for his first ever win. In a Catchweight bout of 215, Anthony Gomez fought Anton Talamantes and used some good ground and pound to create an opening for a submission. Gomez sunk in a rear-naked choke at 3:30 in round one to defeat Talamantes.
With Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney seemingly uninterested at the post-fight press conference at the prospect of Flyweights in Bellator, Bellator 84 did feature a Flyweight fight. Jerald Williams took on Joey Diehl with both fighters showing off their top games for all three rounds for a judges decision of 29-28 in favor for Williams. Also at Welterweight, Belal Muhammed defeated Quinton McCottrell via unanimous decision after all three rounds.
The final fight of the undercard ended in some controversy as Cliff Wright took on Christian Uflacker at Lightweight. After almost two and half rounds of action, Wright landed what appeared to be an illegal knee to the head of Uflacker.
During the stoppage of time to check on Christian, the replay showed that the knee was in fact legal but either way Ulfacker could not continue. Since replay is not used in MMA, the fight then went to the judges score cards where Ulfacker was able to get a 29-28 victory amidst some controversy.
The first fight on the live broadcast was in the Middleweight division as Louis Taylor fought Joe Vedepo. After a brief feeling out process and some ground work from both fighters, Taylor landed a big right from the ground to knockout Vedepo at the 4:12 of the very first round.
The second fight of the televised card was a Women’s feature fight at Strawweight. In a rematch, Patrica Vidonic took this fight on short notice to avenge her loss to Felice Herrig. Besides Vidonic tying up Herrig on several occasions, Felice proved to be the much better fighter in all facets of the game winning a 30-27 unanimous decision.
With the Lightweight final between Dave Jansen and Marcin Held being pulled of the card due to Held being underage to be in a casino, a Middleweight clash between Daniel Vizcaya and Jack Hermansson got bumped up. Unfortunately this fight was rather lack-luster as it ended up being a glorified wrestling much with Vizcaya winning a split decision.
What was supposed to be a real action packed main event for the vacant Bellator Heavyweight title, ended up being a sparring match for five rounds. Whether it was respect, fatigue, conditioning, or fighting in the main event, Richard Hale and Alexander fought to a five round decision with Volkov out kickboxing the American Hale.
Despite a strong and exciting first round won by Hale, both seemed hesitant and reluctant to turn it up notch. The judges scored the fight 49-46 all in favor of the Russian Volkov as Bellator’s new heavyweight champion.
For its farewell card on MTV 2, Bellator 84 did not live up to its to full potential. This fight was supposed to feature another title fight, for Bellator’s light heavyweight title and its season seven featherweight tournament finale. Due to injuries and other unfortunate mishaps, those fights plus a late cancellation of its lightweight final from the card made Bellator 84 come up just a little short.
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Felice Herrig was not shy about exploiting her body at the Bellator 84 weigh-ins in the video below.
Video courtesy of Bellator FC and YouTube uploader cagefanatic