Category — Bellator

This is one sweet submission. On Thursday, Dan Hornbuckle locked in a kimura from the bottom, dropped a leg across Steve Carl’s neck to hold the position, swept to top position and finished it off to earn himself a berth in the Bellator welterweight final against Ben Askren. Textbook.

It took a couple of days for this to show up on Youtube, Bellator middleweight champ Hector Lombard’s record KO of Jay Silva at Thursday’s Bellator XVIII event. The right hook started it, the left finished it. Simple and scary. It was Lombard’s 19th straight win, while Silva is probably regretting he ever stepped up to replace the (obviously insane) Paulo Filho, who back out of the fight because of visa issues, or so he could get a new tattoo or something.

Thursday’s Bellator 15 card was, um, mezzo mezzo. A day later and nothing sticks.

I recall Steve Carl and Geico caveman Brett Cooper slugging it out for three rounds, with Carl walking away with a split decision. But mostly I remember Carl’s got his last name tattooed across his back like it’s a vanity plate. Maybe it’s got something to do with him being in the Army and always having his name on him somewhere. Whatever, it’s dumb.

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Now this is a knockout. Eyes rolled back, out cold, get the smelling salts unconscious. Pat Curran did the damage. Rather, his overhand right did, laying out Georges St. Pierre protegé Mike Ricci at Thursday’s Bellator 14 event. Ricci crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.

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If you missed former UFC star Roger Huerta’s win over Chad Hinton at last week’s Bellator 13 event, here it is. It’s worth checking out for the last couple of minutes of the fight alone.

Former UFC pretty boy Roger Huerta kneebarred Chad Hinton into submission during his Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight tournament debut on Thursday. Other tourney bouts saw Joe Warren and Carey Vanier advance to the semi-finals of the featherweight and lightweight divisions, respectively, while former soccer star Georgi Karakhanyan advanced to the semi-finals at featherweight with a highlight-reel knockout of Bao Qauch (see the video below).

Full results:

Chris Manuel def. Ralph Acosta by guillotine choke R3
Mikey Gomez def. Moyses Gabin by unanimous decision
Georgi Karakhanyan def. Bao Quach by knockout R1
Joe Warren def. Eric Marriott by unanimous decision
Roger Huerta def. Chad Hinton by knee bar submission R3
Carey Vanier def. Joe Duarte by TKO R3
Edson Diniz def. John Kelly by heel hook submission R1
Vagner Rocha def. Francisco Soares by TKO R2

If you miss the tournament format common in many Japanese promotions, get ready for season 2 of Bellator, which starts on April 8. The promotion has four weight classes (featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight) and fighters have to win three straight fights over the course of the season to advance to the final against the reining champion.

I like this match-up: Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez, a top-three fighter in the division, will face discarded UFC vet Josh Neer in a 160-pound Super Fight at an event in May. The bout is one of several non-title, non-tournament bouts slated for Bellator’s second season. Other season one champs (Joe Soto, Lyman Good, Hector Lombard) will also have catchweight “hype” fights while they wait to defend their titles against the season two tourney winners. I love the format, which makes every fight relevant and important and worth paying attention to.

Talk about taking advantage of some cross-promotional/name-recognition frisson: Kim Couture (the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Randy Couture) and Kerry Vera (the current Mrs. Brandon Vera) will square off at an upcoming Strikeforce event, although the date hasn’t been set pending the signing of the contracts.

Couture is 1-1 as a professional MMA fighter. She last fought at Strikeforce: Destruction in November 2008 where she TKO’ed Lina Kvokov. She wa scheduled to fight Miesha Tate in May but withdrew for personal reasons and was replaced by Sarah Kaufman.

Vera made her professional MMA debut with a unanimous-decision win over Leslie Smith in May under the Bellator Fighting Championships banner.

Meanwhile, their significant (and insignificant) others, Randy Couture and Brandon Vera, will headline a light heavyweight bout at UFC 105 on November 14 in Manchester, England.

Who are the best up-and-coming MMA fighters under the age of 25? An interesting question, which Derek Bolender over at the Bleacher Report, sets of to answer.

Most of the usual suspects are on the list – UFC rising star Jon Jones (9-0), who is on a collision course with the light heavyweight champion; Brazilian WEC fighter Jose Aldo (15-1), who will face featherweight champion Mike Brown in November; Jorge Gurgel-trained jiu-jitsu black belt Dustin “McLovin” Hazelett (12-4 MMA), who is in a stacked welterweight division with Georges St. Pierre at the top. All safe bets given what they’ve accomplished so far and the potential each exhibits.

Then he tosses in WEC bantamweights Dominick Cruz (14-1) and Rani Yahya (15-4), who is also an ADCC submission wrestling champion. Two reasonable choices there.

He dips into the Bellator FC fighters pool to nab featherweight champion Joe Soto (7-0) and lightweight Jorge Masvidal (18-4), who is best-known for being on the receiving end of a highlight-reel standing inverted triangle choke from Toby Imada. Interesting but not obviously good or bad choices.

And he tries to make a case for The Ultimate Fighter season five winner Nate Diaz (10-4 MMA). Sure, he’s been in three UFC Fight of the Night winners but he lost two of them, and he’s coming off back-to-back losses to lightweights Clay Guida and Joe “Daddy” Stevenson, who are gatekeepers at best. He needs to stop the slide when he headlines September’s UFC Fight Night 19 with Melvin Guillard or his stock will flatline.

And there’s a couple who are on the list that seem completely out of place. If this is a list of the ones to watch for down the road in a year or two, then why are Strikeforce/DREAM light heavyweight champion (and Fedor Emelianenko’s striking coach) Gegard Mousasi and WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner on the list? They’re at the top of their respective divisions in their respective promotions. The only reason to consider them up-and-coming is because they’re not in the UFC (and because both of them will likely accomplish a lot more than the titles they currently possess, I suppose).

A more interesting – and revealing – list might be ten up-and-comers with fewer than 10 professional fights. It certainly would provide a crystal ball peek into the future of mixed martial arts. Wonder who would make that list?