Brennan Ward and Sabah Homasi spent most of battle week promising their essential card opener on Saturday’s Bellator 290 card could be a slugfest.
Luckily for followers, the pair of welterweight sluggers delivered upon these lofty expectations contained in the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. But it was Ward, in his third battle since ending a five-year layoff fueled by authorized troubles and drug abuse, who proved his miraculous profession comeback continues to be simply getting began.
Ward (17-6) bounced again from being dropped and bloodied within the opening spherical and relied on his gasoline tank to batter Homasi (17-11) en path to a second-round TKO.
“Sabah is hard as hell. He knocked me down within the first spherical, you man noticed that,” Ward stated. “But I want a title shot, Mr. [Scott] Coker [Bellator MMA CEO]. I’m able to go.”
Ward, who challenged unsuccessfully for the Bellator middleweight title in 2014, prolonged his win streak at 170 kilos to 3 straight fights, all by knockout, since returning to the game in 2022. But he was pressured to stroll by super punishment to get there as the 2 fighters co-authored an exhilarating opening spherical, contested at an insane tempo, during which each have been bruised and battered.
Both fighters landed heavy punches and clear leaping knees to open up a number of cuts — below the left eye and on the correct temple of Ward, together with a lower throughout the nostril of Homasi — nevertheless it was Ward who additionally established himself as a risk on the bottom. After taking down Homasi off the opening bell, Ward went on to twice take his opponent’s again and threaten chokes.
But after battering Homasi with punches to shut Round 1, Ward continued to construct on his momentum one spherical later as fatigue started to meet up with Homasi.
Ward, 34, countered a proper hand from Homasi by dropping him with a stiff jab. Ward continued to batter him on the bottom till Homasi broke free. But Homasi was nonetheless wounded from strikes and partially turned his head away from the motion simply as Ward landed a excessive kick to the pinnacle to drop him once more.
A short flurry of strikes on the bottom proved sufficient to complete Homasi off at 1:34 of the spherical as referee Blake Grice jumped in to wave the battle off.
“I shot means quicker than I believed I used to be going to,” Ward stated. “I can wrestle and I used to be an All-American however the followers do not prefer to see lots of wrestling. They like me to bang. I prefer to brawl, I am unable to assist it. It’s in my nature. I needed to put on him down.”
Homasi, a 34-year-old former UFC and Strikeforce veteran who fights out of American Top Team in south Florida, noticed his two-fight win streak come to an finish. He fell to 2-3 over his final 5 bouts.
