Catching Up On Bellator News

Now that the welterweight tournament participants are all official, another tournament has been finalized for season 4:  featherweight.  The winner of this tourney will face champ Joe Warren for the title at the end of the season.  Here are the participants, in no real order:

First is NCAA wrestling champ Eric Larkin.  Larkin is 3-0 in MMA, including a submission victory over Marcus Andrusia last year at Bellator 28. 

The next addition is Zac George, a product of Team Quest who is 20-3-1 in his MMA career.  While none of his victories have been against top level competition, that could change this season. 

Third, we have Kenny Foster, aka The Tooth Fairy.  Foster is 8-2 overall, and was most recently in action at Bellator 33 where he took a unanimous decision over Lester Caslow.

Fourth is Georgi Karakhanyan.  Georgi lost to Joe Warren in the semi finals of season 2 at Bellator 18, in a unanimous decision.  He then went on to win a feature fight against Anthony Leone at Bellator 28.  Georgi is 14-2, with his only other loss coming back in 2008.

Daniel Straus is number 5 to join the tournament.  Straus is 14-3, and is on a 10 fight win streak coming into this season.   We saw him defeat Chad Hinton at Bellator 23, and his most recent win was a UD over WEC vet Karen Darabedyan at Shark Fights 13 last September.  Straus normally fights at lightweight so it will be interesting to see how he does at 145.  Coincidentally, one of his early losses was as a lightweight and at the hands of Pat Curran, who won the Bellator season 2 lightweight final but was unable to fight champ Eddie Alvarez for the title due to an injury.

Another fighter returning for a shot at the title this season is Wilson Reis.  Reis is a BJJ black belt with a record of 11-2.  He was stopped in the season 2 featherweight tourney by Patricio Freire, who is also back this time.  Freire is 14-1 and trains with the Nogueiras.  He was the season 2 runner up, losing to Joe Warren (by split decision). 

Last but not least, Nazareno Malegarie rounds out the tournament.  Malegarie is 19-0, with 5 of those wins by TKO, 2 by decision, and the rest by submission.  Yep, he's a BJJ black belt.  He's never fought in the US before, and I can't wait to see if he's as fantastic as his record would indicate.

Participants in the lightweight tournament are gradually being announced now, with two names surfacing so far: "Razor" Rob McCullough and Carey Vanier.  Vanier was stopped in the previous lightweight tourney by Toby Imada, but earned his way into this season's tourney with a win over Rich Clementi at Bellator 28.  McCullough is a former WEC lightweight champ who has most recently been fighting for Tachi Palace Fights.  No word yet on whether we'll see the return of Toby Imada, since he has been reported as participating in some Shoot Boxing events this year.  

The matchups for the welterweight quarterfinal fights have been set, and look like this:  Lyman Good vs. Chris Lozano, Jay Hieron vs. Steve Carl, Rick Hawn vs. Jim Wallhead, and Dan Hornbuckle vs. Brent Weedman.

Bellator has signed Ben Saunders (though not for any tournament action), which is a happy thing.  It was disappointing to see Saunders cut by the UFC after back to back losses to Jon Fitch and Dennis Hallman.  Hopefully he'll dominate and maybe make it into the next welterweight tournament, which should be coming around in season 6.

Another signee is Luis Santos, a welterweight with a record of 47-6.  Like Saunders, Santos will not be participating in the current welterweight tournament.

Bellator Fighting Championship will air on Saturday nights at 9pm eastern, starting March 5^th, on MTV2.  Be assured that Gals Guide will keep you informed of any and all Bellator news that comes along.  :)