Bellator 64 Thoughts

• I don’t think I’ve ever seen Chris Horodecki look as helpless as he looked against Mike Richman. Great precise strikes from Richman that made Horodecki look like a clueless amateur. Richman’s strikes were super accurate and Horodecki suffered a brutal knock out.
• I personally had 29-28 for Rodrigo Lima, I had him winning the fight based on him fighting off his back. Not surprised that they gave the fight to Nakamura since he had more top control in the fight. Really good fight, neat scrambles and ground work. If someone gets injured, I hope Lima gets the slot.
• I thought Ueda was going to win the fight, I am a huge fan of his front headlock game and how slick he is at working in chokes from that position. He tried that in this fight but Marx was good enough to defend those positions. Marx won this fight on my scorecard 29-28 (I gave Ueda the last round), and it was a great upset win for him. A small highlight for me was Greg Jackson telling Marx “you are having a spectacular fight so far my friend!” in the most kindergarten school teacher sort of way. Another really fun fight.
• Sandro vs Bezerra was pretty disappointing. But never seem to take it to the next gear, but I think it was pretty clear that Sandro was the better fighter. Also, Sandro was doing a great job keeping his right arm up to defend strikes and was using better head movement. He learned  from the Pat Curran loss.
• No one in Bellator is going to be able to beat Ben Askren. He’s a top ten welterweight in my eyes, and I can see him beating guys that are currently ranked ahead of him. He’s just relentless with his takedown attempts, if one doesn’t work, he’ll transition and chain together another one to get the fight to the ground. He just totally overwhelmed Lima with his amazing wrestling and with non-stop strikes from top control. Everyone who is competing in the current Bellator tournament will be no match for Mr. Askren. If I could pick one guy from any promotion to fight Ben Askren, I would pick Rory MacDonald.
• All four main card fights on Bellator 65 look like they have the potential to be great fights. The headliner will be a title fight between Zach Makovsky vs Eduardo Dantas, and I’m assuming it’ll be a five round war. Makovsky is one of the best fighters outside of Zuffa, he’s an excellent wrestler-submission grappler type. Dantas is a fantastic striker and is also really good at submission grappling. The other three fights are Alexis Villa vs Luis Nogueira, Ed West vs Marcos Galvao, and Mike Corey vs Daniel Straus all seem like fights that will deliver.

Bellator 64

April 6, 2012

Jason Fischer defeated Taylor Solomon via rear naked choke submission in the 3rd round.
Nordine Taleb defeated Matt Secor via unanimous decision.
Mike Richman defeated Chris Horodecki via KO in Round 1.
Chad Laprise defeated Josh Taveirne via triangle submission in the 1st Round.
Kyle Prepolec defeated Lance Snow via armbar submission in the 1st round.
Elias Theodorou defeated Rich Lictawa via TKO in the 3rd round.

Bantamweight tournament quarterfinal bout – Hiroshi Nakamura defeated Rodrigo Lima via unanimous decision.
Bantamweight tournament quarterfinal bout – Travis Marx defeated Masakatsu Ueda via unanimous decision.
Featherweight tournament semifinal bout – Marlon Sandro defeated Alexandre Bezerra via split decision.
Welterweight championship – Ben Askren defeated Douglas Lima via unanimous decision.