Bellator 63 Tonight, Welterweights

Calling all fight fans! The Bellator tournament starts tonight at 8e/7c on MTV2. I am gonna be watching, anybody else joining in?

My man David “Caveman” Rickels is going to be kicking ass tonight! If you guys don’t have a fighter to cheer for, pick him ;). If you guys have other favorites, go for it. I’ve been training him (conditioning, strength, speed) for this match for a while now, as part of his fight camp and I wanted to make this thread to cheer him on.

ok ok, /shameless plug. Can’t help it.

This thread is for all Bellator discussion (of which I hope there is some good stuff, as there is plenty of good fighting happening that sometimes gets overlooked on the forum in favor of UFC–not that there’s anything wrong with that, I love it)

Thanks for posting.

Not sure I’ll check this out. But best luck to your guy.

Vikings training Cavemen! Deadly combo!

[quote]Beershoes wrote:
Vikings training Cavemen! Deadly combo![/quote]

Hahahaha. Yes, and we have a woolly mammoth for a mascot. Naturally. I hope you enjoyed the fight, all 22 seconds of it haha.

Ok, so now that I’ve got my head together and some free time, random thoughts on the fight card as a whole…

  1. Saunders/Amaya – Great fight. Both these fighters stayed active and smart (for the most part, Ben had a WTF moment later in the fight with that full mount pass) Saunders was looking for and/or threatening submissions for most of the fight. Amaya, though, impressed me with his heart and his absolute refusal to get cornered into a sub. There were a lot of moments watching where I thought “man, this is so close to over” and Amaya found a way to weasel out of kimura, armbar, or whatever.

I do not know how “technical” the ground game was from a pure JJ standpoint because I am not frankly extremely “literate” with that art, so I can’t always tell when a guy should be doing something to finish but is missing it. However I know good work when I see it on the whole and I very much appreciated the activity on the ground instead of pinning and praying, or just sitting there. Good efforts by both guys when it went to the mat.

Amaya seemed to be definitely the lesser fighter, but he gave it everything he had.

I still do not know WTF Saunders was thinking the moment he gained full mount…and then tried to go for a submission instead of the easy and obvious answer of GnP.

  1. Rickels/Smith – Well obviously I’m biased and invested in Dave, and I always believed he’d win, but this was a great chance to see his improvement. He exploded a lot faster than I believed he would to be honest. I thought there would be a slightly slower start from him (although certainly NOT sluggishly by any means), as sometimes he sort of “eases” into maximum gear, but he hit full speed as soon as the bell rang, just as I had wanted him to (not to mention everybody else who trains with him). He did a great job with accuracy, landing every single blow after the stunner.

Of course, one could rightly say that it’s easy to be “accurate” when the guy you’re fighting is stunned and stumbling, and I’d agree fully. However, I’ve watched a lot of bouts where a fighter will just throw as many bombs as possible once he feels his opponent get hurt/stunned, and I liked the fact that Rickels stayed “targeted”, for lack of a better word.

Favorite moment was actually his post fight interview. “Bellator: so easy a caveman can do it.” Seriously man?? I almost choked on my beer. Everyone in the room died of laughter.

  1. Amoussou/Lozano – Good fight, good night. Looked like Lozano really let his emotions get the better of him. I’m not sure if he was already “on tilt” from his feelings towards Amoussou, or if Amoussou put him there with some of the gamesmanship he displayed leading up to the fight. At any rate not a lot to say on this one, Lozano let himself get swept without much effort and then turned his back. And then let his hands down away from his neck. Good finish by psycho boy.

  2. Baker/Pereira – Weird. That’s all. Pereira easily the more experienced fighter, not to mention pretty good at knocking people out, and able to space himself away from the jerky style of Baker pretty effectively. On the other hand, he didn’t do enough, and seemed to be almost gun shy at points.

Overall enjoyed the card. My only really substantive complaint is that my big beef with American fight audiences is in full swing here again. Much booing with minimal downtime in the fight. I hate it. I think they started booing like 45 seconds into the Amoussou fight.

Again, hoping we can get some people chiming in who watched…I know you’re out there somewhere…

here is a link to Rickels fight. http://www.mmavideofights.net/5931/jordan-smith-david-rickels-video-bellator-63/

The other fights are out there as well. I thought it was a great card with some great talent. I would agree with most things Aragorn stated.

Hey thanks Ranzo!

I’m still hoping that some people will like to chime in. I know I am going against the grain by talking non-UFC (not that there is animosity, just that UFC is sort of the “800 lb gorilla” when it comes to mma and most people follow that heavily but not other fight leagues).

I am really looking forward to watching the next round. I believe that welterweight is one of Bellator’s deepest divisions in general, so there is a lot of potential for great match-ups and great fights, even outside the current welterweight tourney. I do love the lightweights though too.