What Bellator Tourney Fights Do You Want?

[jamesgalb]

So, feel free to list off what you want to see from any division of your choosing....

Feel free to include our reasoning, or don't. Reasoning encourages fun debate though

I personally would like to see Bellator really make a play on the 'recognizable' names that some of their SpikeTV MMA audience may know... Combine it with some real prospects/contenders and create some attractive tournaments...

Next season (after this) would be a good time to put your younger prospects in with your aging bellator cans, and in the mean time feed them some cans in a few showcase fights while these more note-worthy tournaments go through.

(I am assuming the PPV 'success' would open up the Viacom/Bellator wallets a bit more for some more fighters)

Mine:

Updated: Adjusted to new Bellator Tournament Winner rule changes. No prior tournament winners included now

Heavyweight

Ivanov vs Ethrington
vs
Thompson vs Lashley 2
VS
Sosnovskiy vs Mighty Mo
vs
Butler vs Johnson


Lightheavyweight (Tourney set up for best Tito pairings for PPV)

Tito vs Beltran
vs
Sokoudjou vs Wallace
VS
Vassell vs Merad
vs
Sloan vs Sordi


Middleweight

Riddle vs Reitner
vs
Grove vs Filkins
VS
Manhoef vs Parlo
vs
Gracie vs Oropeza


Welterweight

Page vs Karo/Baroni winner
vs
Riggs vs Zaromskis
VS
Coy vs Juarez
vs
WarMachine vs Jensen


Lightweight (Confirmed no tournament @ LW)


Featherweight (Confirmed no tournament @ FW)


Bantamweight

Rivera vs Leone
vs
Emerson vs Nogueira
VS
Lima vs Marx
vs
Davis vs Marlon

 

[Edmond Rousey]

LHW tournament:

 

[Mavadorov]

Sultan Aliev signed with the UFC

 

[jamesgalb]

Sultan Aliev signed with the UFC

Updated with the off-chance that they cancel Ward/Irvin and put Ward in the Tourney... Otherwsie stick a guy with a good highlight reel in there, like Rodgers.

 

[Slongkong]

you have some pretty horrible mismatches. Butler is no where close to the level of Ivanov. and mighty mo vs sosnovskiy? NO way

Butler should be facing Eitherington both undefeated. KArl has the power to ko Butler, their skillsets are pretty even that's just a good fight.

you can put in mighty mo but not against a good prospect like that. Mo deserves an easier matchup then re entry into the tourney. Like Holata.

Acceptable matches for Sosnovskiy are ryan Martinez, javy ayala or Freddie Aquitania considering he beat both ayala and applet.

Now onto your horrible lhw tourney
Tito gets absolutely worked by mo terrible mismatch. and they don't wanna set up mo again, it's bad business and theres no need. Sok gets worked by Beltran as well. Mo should never be fighting for a title. Maybe a tito vs soko and m'pumbu vs noe if you want the clear set up for tito but no terrible tourney.

the rest I'm mostly ok with.

 

[Paul L]

For the HW tournament...

4 man:

Ivanov vs Mighty Mo
Spartan vs Kongo

8 man:

Ivanov vs Thompson
Spartan vs Ayala
Butler vs Mighty Mo
Martinez vs Kongo

Stuart Austin should fight Karl Etherington. Make it an alternate fight. Battle of the British heavyweights.

Sosnovskiy needs time to marinate in the division, I'd say Aquitania would be a good opponent, followed by Peter Graham or Lavar, then he'd be ready for the next tourny after this upcoming one.

 

[jamesgalb]

you have some pretty horrible mismatches. Butler is no where close to the level of Ivanov. and mighty mo vs sosnovskiy? NO way

Butler should be facing Eitherington both undefeated. KArl has the power to ko Butler, their skillsets are pretty even that's just a good fight.

you can put in mighty mo but not against a good prospect like that. Mo deserves an easier matchup then re entry into the tourney. Like Holata.

Acceptable matches for Sosnovskiy are ryan Martinez, javy ayala or Freddie Aquitania considering he beat both ayala and applet.

Now onto your horrible lhw tourney
Tito gets absolutely worked by mo terrible mismatch. and they don't wanna set up mo again, it's bad business and theres no need. Sok gets worked by Beltran as well. Mo should never be fighting for a title. Maybe a tito vs soko and m'pumbu vs noe if you want the clear set up for tito but no terrible tourney.

the rest I'm mostly ok with.

Id replace Butler with Ethrington.

The rest were specifically made to line up a legit contender with a 'name' they can beat. Contender wins and they gain a name, name wins and they regain some legitimacy, either way second rounds are solid...

Tito vs Mo is a legit PPV fight for Tito. No many of those exist for him unless he is fast-forwarded to Rampage... If Bellator sticks to the tournament format (who knows at 205lbs tbh), that is the best route for setting up Titos next 2 fights for PPV-worthy fights.... You can ofcourse flip Mo and Soko for the first round, but I don't think Tito vs Soko draws as well until Soko gets another win...

 

[Slongkong]

why would you replace butler with karl? that's dumb. Have them fight each other

 

[jamesgalb]

I don't think either Butler or Ethrington have enough appeal to warrant taking anyone else out of the tournament... My selections are directed as getting the most attention possible, and I don't think replacing any of the other 7 with a Butler or Ethrington makes sense at this point... They are interchangeable themselves, but I agree that Ethrington is the better fit at this point in his career...

Give Butler, Austin, etc some showcase fights before entering them into a more prospect-oriented tournament next season. Right now Bellator needs more name recognition for their tournaments this season, in order to give their champions some recognizable challengers...

 

[SBC]

I co-sign on Rickels-Hawn even though I think that Rickels would yet again be on the wrong side of a pretty devastating KO. Just to see Hawn back at LW would be good.

I'd like to se Bellator re-sign Nazareno Malagarie at BW and put him in against LC Davis. I think that would make for a really good fight. In a fantasy world I'd like to see Bellator sign Thomas De Almeida and put him up against Emerson for no other reason than to see Emerson get destroyed so people could stop talking about what a beast he is and hopefully that would be the last we'd see of him in Bellator. Also, Almeida is a stud! There's an undefeated BW named Renato Carneiro that I'd like to see fight. Maybe not in a tournament just yet. I'd like to see Rodrigo Lima fight Travis Marx at BW as well.

 

[SBC]

Also, two other non-tournament pick-ups I would love to see are Gregor Gillespie and Chris Honeycutt. Also, bring back that Sinjen Smith kid who made his pro debut back on the Minakov-Kongo fight card.

 

[Slongkong]

Also, two other non-tournament pick-ups I would love to see are Gregor Gillespie and Chris Honeycutt. Also, bring back that Sinjen Smith kid who made his pro debut back on the Minakov-Kongo fight card.

Talk about all these bring backs. How about JImmie rivera? he's nasty and on a crazy streak at BW

 

[MeatBarry]

Ideally.

HW
Kongo vs Spartan/Ivanov
Javy vs Thompson
Sos vs Etherington
Butler vs Mighty Mo

LHW:
Swarm vs Soko
Tito vs Beltran
Mo vs Oezdemir
Sloan vs Eduardo

MW:
Grove vs M'Pumbu
Marshall vs Parlo
Deblass vs Reiter
Filkins vs ward

WW
Riggs vs Karl Amoussou
War Machine vs Zaromskis/Page
Bryan Baker vs Nate Coy
Phil Baroni vs Karo Parisyian (why not? lol)

LW
Sarnavskiy vs Saad
derek Anderson vs Michael Chandler
Terry Etim vs Paul Sass
Sinclair vs Zavurov

FW
Wilcox vs Green
Nunes vs Fabricio guerreio
Marlon Sandro vs Mike Richman
Goiti vs Akop/Neves/Anyone

BW
Rafael Silva vs Emerson
Marx vs Galvao
Nogueira vs Leone
Davis vs Lima/Malagarie/Anyone

 

[jamesgalb]

Updated to reflect new tournament winners no longer participating...

Cool stuff imo, allows for new winners while also allowing old winners to feel free to fight without having to enter another tournament.

 

[CoryGraves]

MW-
Mikkel Parlo vs.
Ben Reiter vs. Jonas Billstein
Emiliano Sordi vs. Tom DeBlass
Perry Filkins vs. Bubba McDaniel
Alternate: Joe Vedepo, Ward/Irvin winner

BW
LC Davis vs. Travis Marx
Rob Emerson vs Diego Marlon
Sergej Grecicho vs Anthony Leone
Brandon Bender vs Mike Richman

edit: added richman to BW mix after seeing he was dropping down.

 

[CoryGraves]

HW
Stuart Austin vs. Josh Diekmann
Karl Etherington vs. Blagoi Ivanov
James Thompson vs. Mighty Mo
Dmitriy Sosnovskiy vs. Javy Ayala

 

[ebartlett84]

Also, two other non-tournament pick-ups I would love to see are Gregor Gillespie and Chris Honeycutt. Also, bring back that Sinjen Smith kid who made his pro debut back on the Minakov-Kongo fight card.

Yes, the kid made an impression on me also.

He's scheduled to fight in Sacramento on Saturday.