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Bellator Japan

As is tradition, I fell asleep watching Bellator cause I’m a grown ass child who can’t stay up past 10:30. Anyway, here are some quick thoughts on the rest of the card as I just finished watching it.

Kana Watanabe (T)KOs Ilara Joanne in 3rd round - Joanne was the most game opponent that Joanne has fought to date in terms of experience and age. That said, she’s still an undersized 125lber so seeing her find success in the grappling against the much bigger, much stronger experienced grappler in Watanabe was pretty impressive. Still, Watanabe’s size and strength advantage proved to be too much as she would eventually wind up on top hammering away on Joanne from the back mount for the win. Ended up being the only Rizin fighter on the main card to win their fight. Seeing as how Joanne was supposed to be Bec Rawlings (but Bec lost to Joanne), I’m curious if Rizin and Bellator would be down for letting Watanabe eventually fight for the title.

Lorenz Larkin DEC Keita Nakamura - Larkin was too quick and too sharp on the feet for K-Taro to get anything going. Nice use of the jab, great diversity of kicks, and some nice TDD that punished K-Taro for even trying led Larkin to a wide decision win. Looks like we’ll be getting another Larkin-Lima title fight which will hopefully produce a few more fireworks this time around.

Michael “Venom” Page KOs Shinsho Anzai in 2nd - Another lamb to the slaughter for MVP. Knocks out Anzai on a step back right hand seconds in to the 2nd round after completely dominating the first. On a card featuring Lorenz Larkin, I’m disappointed (but not surprised) they didn’t just make Larkin vs MVP. I’m over MVP as the human highlight reel. Get the man some tough fights.

Michael Chandler KOs Sidney Outlaw in the 1st - Chandler knocks out Sidney Outlaw with basically the exact same punch Patricio Pitbull landed on him to take the LW title from Chandler. Not a whole lot to say other than Chandler still looks athletic as hell. Disappointed that Bendo wasn’t able to make it for this one. If Patricio is really going to be tied up with the Bellator FW tournament in 2020, I’d be cool with seeing Chandler fight some of dudes competing in the Rizin LW grand prix. Fights with Tofiq Musayev, Luiz Gustavo, and Johnny Case could be real fun.

Fedor Emelianenko KOs Rampage Jackson in the 1st - We’ve had quite a number of sad boy fights over the past few years but this one is up there in terms of sad boyness. I see people saying that Rampage took a dive. No, dude showed up probably not having trained much if at all for the fight. Dude was content to just what was going to happen happen. Fedor, to his credit, still had that natural explosiveness. Threw everything with full body weight behind it as we’ve become accustomed to seeing him do. Stopped Rampage with a right hand as Page kind of meandered forward. Fedor said this was his last fight in Japan. Plans to fight once more in the U.S. and then finish his career with a fight in Russia, but he’ll likely fight on for another 10 years because this is MMA.

A fine event for Bellator’s Japanese debut. Provided some nice finishes. Wasn’t completely booked on nostalgia. This card could have easily been Fedor, Rampage, Josh Barnett, Roy Nelson, Sergei Kharitonov, Wanderlei, Machida, etc. Instead we got some dudes in the mix at Bellator. Wish they had been booked in more competitive fights though. I get RIZIN has their big NYE event on Tuesday but still.

Also sucks there was no way to watch the postlim featuring all the RIZIN match-ups. I’m guessing that had to do with the logistics of having a Bellator/Viacom/DAZN film crew with a FITE TV/RIZIN film crew but come on.

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