Preview: Bellator Fighting Championships III

Bellator Fighting Championships made a successful sophomore voyage to Uncasville, Connecticut last week at Mohegan Sun on April 10, 2009. Topping the night’s card was a first-round featherweight contest between undefeated Wilson Reis and Henry Martinez, and the former did not disappoint with an impressive unanimous decision victory to push him to the second round of the featherweight tournament.

In other tournament action, the final lightweight quarterfinalist to move on to the next round was Eric Reynolds, who took out the slightly favored Thomas Shulte with strikes in the first round. Crowd favorite Lyman Good continued his unbeaten streak with a second-round submission of the more experienced Hector Urbina in welterweight quarterfinal action, with Jorge Ortiz and Omar De La Cruz accompanying him with solid victories of their own.

Unlike Bellator’s debut event, their second effort saw five of the nine scheduled bouts make it to the judges’ scorecards. ProFighting-fans.com did not fair as well as BFC I as far as predictions are concerned, picking just two of six featured bouts correctly.

With week three fast approaching to mark the start of Bellator’s middleweight tournament quarterfinals, we will attempt to break down the main card and duplicate our first-event accuracy with previews and predictions for BFC III, which takes place April 17, 2009 at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Week 3 BFC Predictions:

BFC III – Middleweight Tournament Quarterfinals:

Hector Lombard vs. Virgil Lozano

With 21 professional fights already under his belt in five years of competition, Hector Lombard (18-2-1 MMA) is expected by many to sweep Bellator’s first ever-middleweight tournament. Currently riding an explosive twelve-fight unbeaten streak, Lombard should be able to firm up those expectations with a first or second-round knockout of dangerous grappler Virgil Lozano (6-1-1 MMA), a fighter with not even half of his opponent’s in-cage experience.

Alex Andrade vs. James Damien Stelly

A difficult fight to pick. Both “El Toro” Andrade (8-4 MMA) and Stelly (8-2 MMA) have had relatively up and down careers, with some big fights between them. The only negative is that neither fighter has come out on top when facing top-notch competition, with Andrade being flattened by the UFC’s Krzysztof Soszynski last year and losing a decision to “Ninja” Rua back in 2001. Stelly hasn’t fared much better, losing by first-round knockout to rising UFC star Luis Arthur Cane back in 2007. Stelly is currently riding a three-fight winning streak and should be able to make it to four with a hard-fought decision win over a game Andrade.

Daniel Tabera vs. Jared Hess

While Daniel Tabera (12-1-3 MMA) is a tough journeyman fighter with over six years of professional experience, Hess (6-0-1 MMA) has yet to taste defeat in his short professional career, where he has finished all six of his winning fights. It may be a risk considering Tabera’s unquestionable experience level, but the up and comer should be able to put Tabera down early and often to earn a Unanimous Decision in this one.

Yosmany Cabezas vs. Edwin Aguilar

Another match up of old (relatively speaking) versus new, Cabezas (7-1 MMA) and Aguilar (20-12 MMA) should put on a fast-paced and exciting fight for the fans in attendance. While Aguilar undoubtedly has had more cage time throughout his seven-year career than his opponent, look for Cabezas to continue his unbeaten streak as he takes an overaggressive and inconsistent Aguilar out with a first round triangle choke.

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BFC III – Welterweight Tournament Quarterfinal:

Dave Menne vs. Norman Paraisy

Another extremely difficult fight to pick. Dave Menne (45-15-2 MMA) is one of the most experienced professional mixed martial artists still in active competition, with his first professional fight taking place twelve years ago when the sport was just beginning. He is a former UFC middleweight champion—admittedly during a greener time in the now ultra competitive promotion—and caries some knockout power and serious submission skills in his tool kit. Nonetheless, Menne is coming off of two straight UFC losses in 2006, followed by an impressive 2008 TKO of Travis McCullough, but the undefeated Paraisy (5-0 MMA), training at the famous American Top Team, will dash the veteran’s hopes of claiming another legitimate belt before the end of his career with a submission midway into the fight.

Look for previews of all of Bellator’s events to be up in the future on ProFighting-fans.com.

By Steven T. Kelliher
ProFighting-fans.com Staff Writer