The Bellator Bantamweight World Grand Prix continues on Friday evening with a pair of semifinal bouts anchoring Bellator 289 from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The major occasion is a kind of two fights but in addition a battle for the interim title as Raufeon Stots places his title on the road in opposition to Danny Sabatello.
In the opposite event battle, Magomed Magomedov battles Patchy Mix to earn not solely a spot within the event finals but in addition a shot on the interim title and the $1 million prize.
Another title is on the road on the occasion, as Juliana Velasquez will tackle the girl who defeated her to win the flyweight crown, Liz Carmouche. After a controversial ending to their first battle, each girls will look to erase any doubt as to who’s the higher fighter.
As with any battle card, there are a number of storylines working all through the occasion. With Bellator 289, these storylines could also be extra attention-grabbing or larger than most othercards. With that in thoughts, let’s check out the three greatest tales heading into the occasion.
It’s put up or shut up time for Stots and Sabatello
While Bellator has produced notable rivalries within the promotion’s historical past, only a few have had the type of warmth that Stots and Sabatello have introduced over the previous few months. Sabatello as a trash talker had by no means come throughout somebody keen to return verbal barbs till he bumped into Stots. That led to some wild media appearances and spicy speak persevering with in each interview both man has given forward of the battle. Stots has repeatedly criticized Sabatello as each a person and a fighter, equivalent to telling MMA Junkie Radio that every thing about Sabatello is a masks for his shortcomings, saying, “He’s in all probability essentially the most one-dimensional fighter that Bellator has, however he does an excellent job of creating individuals overlook that. That’s his complete facade, is like, ‘I’m coming right here to crush this man. I need to hate this man,’ however then you are going to go in there and you are going to cuddle any person’s goddamn legs the entire f—ing 5 rounds.”
But speak does not matter as soon as the bell rings and this can be a battle each to advance to the Grand Prix finals and for Stots’ interim bantamweight title. It’s now as much as Sabatello to show his wrestling-based, grinding fashion is ready to play on the highest ranges of Bellator, or for Stots to show that his dynamic, high-paced assault is sufficient to overcome a one-dimensional fighter.
Combat sports activities present essentially the most direct reply in all of athletics to a trash-talk-filled rivalry. The cage door closes and it is one on one. Neither man needs to depart Connecticut because the loser after months of the insistence on their standing as the higher fighter and higher man.
The champ makes the primary protection of her title
Liz Carmouche occupies an vital place in MMA historical past. While girls’s MMA had been established lengthy earlier than the UFC determined to permit girls to set foot within the Octagon as something aside from an “Octagon Girl,” it was nonetheless a landscape-changing second for the game. And Carmouche shared the cage with Ronda Rousey within the first ever girls’s battle within the UFC, even threatening Rousey early within the battle earlier than being submitted late within the first spherical.
Up till her most up-to-date battle, Carmouche’s was a profession of footnotes. A title challenger in Strikeforce and twice within the UFC, along with the battle with Rousey, Carmouche was round however by no means on high of a premier division. Then, at Bellator 278, she completed Juliana Velasquez with elbows within the fourth spherical of a aggressive battle to seize the Bellator girls’s flyweight title.
Carmouche’s first protection is available in a rematch with Velasquez, who appealed the loss within the first battle resulting from what she felt was a nasty stoppage. It’s now on Carmouche to proceed constructing her new narrative as champion fairly than footnote.
The different Grand Prix battle is a few hearth, too
While Stots and Sabatello are grabbing the headlines, the battle between Patchy Mix and Magomed Magomedov will decide the opposite Grand Prix finalist and the following challenger for the interim bantamweight title. In addition, it is a very compelling bout. Mix began his profession 13-0 earlier than stumbling in a shot on the vacant bantamweight title in opposition to Juan Archuleta in September 2020. That was a disastrous efficiency for Mix, however he has since bounced again with three wins, together with defeating event favourite Kyoji Horiguchi within the Grand Prix quarterfinals.
Magomedov additionally received 13 straight to begin his profession earlier than struggling his first defeat, a call loss in Russia to Petr Yan, who would go on to win a UFC championship. Four fights later, Magomedov made his option to Bellator and appeared like he’d be a significant pressure within the division. But, in simply his third Bellator battle, Magomedov discovered himself within the cage with Stots. In one in every of Bellator’s greatest fights in 2021, Stots pulled off the choice win and set Magomedov again in his pursuit to take over the division.
Now, Mix and Magomedov meet within the semifinals with each males battling for redemption and to lastly attain the mountaintop. It might not have the trash-talking aptitude of Stots vs. Sabatello, however Mix vs. Magomedov is an enormous battle with severe implications for 2 of bantamweight’s greatest.
