Category — Bellator

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?

One of the biggest complaints fans have about women’s MMA is that there aren’t any knockouts, women don’t have the power, they punch like girls, etc… Well, let me introduce you to 19-year-old Stefanie Guimareas, who took less than a minute to introduce Yvonne Ruiz’s face to her knee followed by Ruiz’s back to the canvas at Bellator XII last week. Maybe she didn’t like Ruiz’s Brock Lesnar hairdo. Although, on reconsideration, Ruiz kind of looks like Brigitte Nielsen.

Hector Lombard beat Jared Hess via TKO in the third round to win the first-ever Bellator middleweight title at Bellator XII on Friday. You’d never know from this photo that the fight was stopped because the other guy was cut.

Love this crazy upsidedown/backward triangle submission from standing…

Chuck Norris would be proud of this spinning backfist…