Bellator MMA 96

Bellator MMA 96

 

On Wednesday June 19^th the Bellator MMA summer series begins. The opening round of tournaments begins with the heavyweights and light heavyweights squaring off to determine who advances to the finals and who goes back to the drawing board.

 

In the night’s main event we have two hard hitting light heavyweights with former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion “King” Mo Lawal (9-2-0-1) squaring off against UFC veteran and TUF 2 competitor Seth “The Silverback” Petruzelli (14-7).

Both men are coming off of losses and will be looking to solidify their place in the Bellator MMA light heavyweight division by advancing to the finals of the tournament. After knocking out Przemyslaw Mysialaat in his Bellator debut, “King” Mo suffered a highlight reel knockout loss in his last fight to Emmanuel Newton via a well timed spinning backfist at Bellator MMA 90 this past February. Lawal has notable wins over Gegard Mousasi and submission ace Roger Gracie.

Petruzelli is coming into Wednesday’s nights fight after suffering a tko loss to co-main event participant Jacob Noe at Bellator 85. Seth will drop back down to 205 to secure a tournament final berth in the Bellator summer series. Petruzelli has notable wins over two former UFC heavyweight champions Ricco Rodriguez and UFC hall of famer Dan “The Beast” Severn.

 

The participants in Wednesday’s co-main event feature two more light heavyweight tournament competitors with UFC veteran and former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Renato “Babalu” Sobral (37-10) taking on the hard hitting Jacob “The Psycho” Noe (11-2).

Sobral will be looking to rebound from a knockout loss to Mikhail Zayats in the opening round of last season’s light heavyweight tournament at Bellator 85. Babalu has alternated between wins and losses in his last 6 fights going 3-3 along the way. Sobral might be fighting for the future of his career as he has been knocked out in his last 3 losses. Renato has notable wins over UFC vets Trevor Prangley, Jeremy Horn and former PRIDE and UFC champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

Jacob Noe is also coming into Wednesday’s tournament semifinal after a loss to Mikhail Zayats via a first round submission (armbar). Noe has a notable win over UFC vet Seth Petruzelli at Bellator 85 in January and will be looking to add another big name win to his resume.

 

In the opening round of the heavyweight tournament we have two time finals competitor Rich Hale (21-5-1) taking on the extremely tough Ryan Martinez (9-2). Hale has made it to both the Bellator light heavyweight tournament finals and the Bellator heavyweight tournament final losing in both finals matches. Rich has a well rounded game and has the tools to end the fight standing or on the ground. His technical submission win against Nik Fekete at Bellator 38 in 2011 via inverted triangle is still one of the best submissions I have seen in the Bellator cage.

Hale’s opponent, Ryan Martinez is a tournament alternate who is taking this fight on about 24 hours notice after Hale’s initial opponent Vinicius Queiroz was forced to withdraw due to a knee injury merely hours before the official weigh-ins. Martinez is looking to continue his momentum after knocking out the tough UFC veteran and MMA journeyman Travis Wiuff in just 18 seconds at Bellator 93 this past March. In Martinez’ 9 career victories, he has 6 wins by stoppage (4 ko/tko, 2 submissions).

 

In the second heavyweight tournament bout, Vitaly Minakov (10-0) takes on Ron Sparks (8-1). The heavy handed Sparks has finishes in 7 of his 8 career wins with 6 coming via ko/tko and 1 submission win. Sparks is looking to rebound from his first professional loss to Eric Prindle at Bellator 56 in October of 2011.

Sparks' opponent, the undefeated Vitaly Minakov, is coming into Wednesday’s tournament semifinals on the heels of a knockout win over Vladimir Starcencov at Bellator 79 in November 2012. Vitaly, a Russian sambist and judoka, and has the grappling pedigree and skills to dictate the pace and take the fight to the mat or keep it standing.

 

In the first fight on the Spike TV televised portion of Bellator MMA 96, we have a featured welterweight fight between the oft controversial TUF competitor War Machine (formerly Jon Koppenhaver). War Machine has made the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past few years. War Machine (12-4) is 2-2 in his last 4 fights alternating between wins and losses. In his last outing he beat UFC veteran Roger Huerta via knockout in November 2011.

His opponent Blas Avena (8-6), is a submission fighter and W.E.C. veteran. The tough Avena has recorded 6 out of his 8 wins via submission. Blas should be looking to get this fight to the ground to submit Koppenhaver.

Bellator MMA 96 airs live on SPIKE TV on Wednesday June 19th with a 3 hour broadcast. Preliminary action can be seen on Spike.com at 6 p.m. ET. and the main card starts at 7 p.m. ET on SPIKE TV.

 

Enjoy the fights and stay safe.

Randy Casjens

Twitter @SavageRandy