Bellator 47 Preview

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Featherweight Tournament Semifinals: Marlon Sandro (18-2, No. 4 FEW) vs. Nazareno Malegarie (20-1)
Featherweight Tournament Semifinals: Pat Curran (14-4) vs. Ronnie Mann (20-2-1)
Lightweight: Chris Horodecki (17-3) vs. Chris Saunders (9-1)
Lightweight: Alexandre Bezerra (9-1) vs. Jesse Gross (6-1)
Featherweight: William Romero (5-3) vs. Daniel Langbeen (3-3)
Welterweight: Sergej Juskevic (11-6-2) vs. Daron Cruickshank (8-2)
Bantamweight: Syd Barnier (3-3) vs. Denis Puric (3-1)
Lightweight: Alka Matewa (1-1) vs. Alex Ricci (2-0)

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Featherweight Tournament Semifinals: Marlon Sandro d. Nazareno Malegarie (Unanimous Decision)

Sandro’s boxing was sharp all night, while he even utilized some takedowns to take a unanimous decision over Nazareno Malegarie.  Malegarie has a bright future in MMA, but he didn’t fight a particularly smart fight.  He kept the fight standing for the duration, not wise against a great striker like Sandro.  Still, it’s tough to fight a good fight against a top featherweight like Sandro.

Featherweight Tournament Semifinals: Pat Curran d. Ronnie Mann (Unanimous Decision)

Curran was the fighter who pushed the pace in this fight and he did a nice job defending all of Mann’s attempts at offense.  Curran’s boxing was good and he kept Mann uncomfortable all night, taking a very convincing decision over a tough fighter.  Sandro vs. Curran was the likeliest of all outcomes prior to the tournament and it should be a very good final contest.  A win for Curran would definitely propel him to the top of the featherweight standings.

Lightweight: Chris Horodecki d. Chris Saunders (Unanimous Decision)

Horodecki was clearly the better fighter in this one, out striking and out grappling Saunders en route to a unanimous decision win.  As much as I dislike Horodecki, he’s definitely a competitive enough fighter to make things interesting in a lightweight tournament.  I’m all for Bellator bringing out some bigger names to fill their tournaments, which seems increasingly likely for those fighters out of favor with Zuffa.

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Heavyweight: Neil Grove d. Zak Jensen (TKO – Round 1, 2:00)

This fight consisted of two very big men hitting each other, though both fighters did make submission attempts during the fight.  In the end, Grove was the biggest and the smashiest of the two fighters and took the TKO win with some devastating ground and pound.  It was announced that Grove will be participating in the next heavyweight tournament for Bellator and I’m interested to see the other seven fighters Bellator brings in.