Thursday is becoming one of my favorite nights of the week thanks to Bellator Fighting Championships. This week's show features the Quarterfinals of the Welterweight tournament and a non-title superfight featuring Bellator Featherweight Champion Joe Soto. I'm not a fan of non-title fights. This is the only thing that I disagree with that Bellator is doing. In my eyes if a champion steps into the cage his title should be up for grabs. But I won't ramble about my opinions on that and of course i'll still enjoy the Featherweight fight.
Non-title Featherweight Superfight
Joe "The Hammer" Soto (Bellator Featherweight Champion) 8-0 vs Diego Saraiva 18-8-1
Diego Saraiva is best known for his 0-3 stint in the UFC back in 2007 dropping three decisions to Dustin Hazelett, Jorge Gurgel and Jeremy Stephens. He's obviously dropped to Featherweight since that time and is actually undefeated in the weight class. Saraiva has great jiu-jitsu skills but similar to one of his UFC opponents Jorge Gurgel he's been known to have overconfidence in his standup skills and seems more determined to do that than rely on his bread and butter BJJ. Joe Soto comes from the same wrestling team that UFC stars Cain Velasquez and Jon "Bones" Jones and like those two he's transitioned excellently to MMA. Last year he defeated Ben Greer, Wilson Reis and then Yahir Reyes in the finals to become the first Bellator Featherweight Champion. Joe is an excellent well rounded fighter with great wrestling ability, excellent takedown defense, and jiu-jitsu. I think Joe has superior standup to Diego and when the going gets tough for Diego on the feet I don't believe that he has the ability to take Soto down.
Prediction - Joe Soto TKO Round 1
Welterweight Quarterfinal #1
"Funky" Ben Askren 4-0 vs Ryan "The Tank Engine" Thomas 11-4
This is actually a rematch of their first round match in this same tournament. Askren won with a very controversial stoppage in round 1 of their first fight when the referee stopped it prematurely as Askren had Thomas locked in a choke. Thomas got a much deserved second chance in the tournament at Bellator 15 when British fighter Jim Wallhead couldn't make the flight from the UK thanks to the volcanic ash in the air. Thomas took full advantage of his opportunity destroying Jacob McClintock in the 1st Round by TKO. This fight should be really interesting because these two guys really do not like each other. Ben Askren is an excellent Olympic level wrestler and he's not shy about telling everyone how great he is. He's very brash and talks a LOT of trash. But with that being said he's super talented and definitely has the ability to back up his claims in the cage. He's a developing superstar much like Joe Warren. A better comparison might be to a fresh off the Ultimate Fighter Josh Koscheck. Ryan Thomas had two fights in the UFC in 2008 losing by arm bar submission to both Ben Saunders and Matt Brown. He's much improved since then and has very good standup skills. However although the end of the first fight was controversial I expect this fight to go similar to their first fight. Thomas does not have the ability to stop Askren's takedowns nor do I think he can outgrapple him. I think Askren is going to take him down very early and completely maul him on the ground.
Prediction - Ben Askren by Submission Round 2
Welterweight Quarterfinal #2
Dan "The Handler" Hornbuckle 20-2 vs Steve Carl 10-1
Steve Carl is a decent striker with a good ground game and definitely has potential. In his first round matchup he defeated IFL and Affliction veteran Brett Cooper by split decision. Since suffering his first loss by TKO in the third fight of his career Carl is 8-0. Dan Hornbuckle is in my opinion one of the best Welterweights not in the UFC. His highest profile fights have all been in Japan for Sengoku. He lost his debut there to Mike Pyle by submission but after that he became a destroyer. His headkick KO on Akihiro Gono at Sengoku Ninth Battle is one of the best headkick KO's i've ever seen. If I can find a clip of it i'll post it up because it's just so awesome every MMA fan should see it. If I can't find that clip check it out on Sengoku 9 or if you have HDNET they put it on their headkick KO's special along with some cool headkick KO's by Marius Zaromskis. Anyway Hornbuckle is also good at submissions he submitted his first round opponent Tyler Stinson. I'll give Carl credit he's pretty good but he's not ready for a guy like Hornbuckle. I think "The Handler" has the advantage both on the feet and the ground and he's going to massacre poor Steve Carl.
Prediction - Dan Hornbuckle by TKO in Round 1 (hopefully with another cool head kick)
For more information on Bellator Fighting Championships head to their website at http://www.bellator.com and they also post clips regularly on youtube (like the Hector Lombard fight I posted on here) at http://www.youtube.com/user/BellatorMMA
You can also follow them on twitter @BellatorMMA and Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney@BjornRebney.
I also tweet (not as regularly as i'd like to) @MarkRoseHFX
Thanks for reading and enjoy Bellator Fighting Championships.
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