BELLATOR 150
FEBRUARY 26, 2016
LIVE FROM MULVANE, KANSAS
One week after scoring record ratings on Spike, Bellator is back with a decidedly less-high-profile event tonight. We’ll have some on-going thoughts with results throughout the night’s broadcast, so stick around here with us to follow along!
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Fighters are in the cage as we kick off tonight. That’s always a refreshing way to start the pace of a show; shame it rarely holds up throughout a broadcast.
Fight One: Lena Ovchynnikova vs. Rebecca Ruth (Women’s Flyweight)
-Round One – Ovchynnikova getting some hype coming in, but Ruth gets the advantage early off a takedown out of the clinch and a positional advantage on the ground. Neither do much from there, but it’s a good section for Ruth to put forth some control. We get a little spurt of wildness after Ovchynnikova got to her feet, but that quickly stalled into another clinch. Ruth takes the round.
-Round Two – Ovchynnikova failed to take advantage early after Ruth slipped, and though she got some strikes in it nearly backfired after Ruth got up. Of course, Ruth lost her own dominant position after nearly taking Ovchyinnikova’s back. More clinch work brings this round down some more. Ruth continued to get the best of things, but there wasn’t a ton happening up on the cage. After separating, both managed to connect in a few wild exchanges, with Ruth getting the best of things. Ruth wound up poorly positioning herself in a near takedown, but she attacked late for an armbar to take round two as well.
-Round Three – Ruth got the fight to the ground again and worked well for a while with position. Ovchynnikova attempted to hold a headlock with Ruth behind her, but couldn’t, allowing Ruth to continue bullying her around on the ground. Ruth scored a nice slam after Ovchynnikova managed to briefly get to her feet. Her ground attack continued to be effective, if unspectacular. Ruth continued to lock down positional control, though she let Ovchynnikova up with 30 seconds left. Ovchynnikova scored a few late strikes, but Ruth continued to move forward. More late clinch work, and the bell rings. Should be Ruth’s fight without question.
-Rebecca Ruth takes the unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 29-28) in a solid enough fight. Right decision, though not sure which round was given to Ovchynnikova. Regardless, nothing special, but good work from Ruth throughout.
Fight Two: Gaston Reyno vs. Chuka Willis (Featherweight)
-Round One – Lots of competitive if somewhat dull clinch work in the first half of the round, neither gaining much of an edge. They broke off almost three minutes in and Reyno seemed more comfortable with what he was throwing. Willis got a bit overzealous on a takedown attempt and Reyno jumped a guillotine attempt. Willis defended well and got himself free, though. He wound up transitioning to take Reyno’s back late and looked for a choke. Probably Reyno’s round still.
-Round Two – Willis hurt Reyno badly early, but Reyno managed to recover and keep himself in the fight. Willis worked decently in the clinch, but got stalled out due to a groin shot. Good job on the ref restarting them in the position they were in as Willis was Reyno on the cage. Neither was getting much of an edge, though Willis kept Reyno on the cage. They eventually separated late, and Reyno got a bit desperate late to land something, failing in that endeavor. Willis’ round to even things up.
-Round Three – Dull first half. Lots of clinch work, Willis holding control for the most part. There was a brief separation late in the round, but it went right back into the clinch after Willis landed a hard strikes. They traded punches late, but again Willis locked him down. Reyno tried to jump for a guillotine late that had little effect. Probably Willis’ round and fight. Not great either way.
-Chuka Willis takes the unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27). Don’t agree with him getting the first necessarily, but it was close enough there was an argument for it. Not a great fight at any rate.
Fight Three: Kendall Grove vs. Francisco France (Middleweight)
-Round One – A low blow from Grove was the only memorable moment from the round. Lots of largely ineffective clinch work.
-Round Two – After nothing happened in that first round, Grove clipped Grove with a right hand, then put him out on the ground. Hell of finish from Grove.
-Grove wins by KO :35 into the second round. Huge win for Grove after the stoppage loss to Brandon Halsey in his last fight.
Fight Four: David Rickels vs. Bobby Cooper (Lightweight)
-Round One – Quite a bit of strikes thrown in the early going, and Rickels clinched up when Cooper was getting the best of it. Rickels tried being wild after breaking out of the clinch, but Cooper was still landing the better strikes midway through. There was a lot of swing-and-miss to Rickels’ attack. Cooper somehow got hurt in the midst of a clinch battle, and Rickels tried to finish things off. The assault was enough to eventually earn the stoppage. Nice work late after taking more damage than he gave in the first half of the round.
-Rickels takes the TKO 3:49 into the first round. Nice win for Rickels to keep him viable as a feature guy for Bellator on cards like this.
Main Event Fight Five: Cheick Kongo vs. Vinicius Quieroz (Heavyweight)
-Sean Grande categorizes this as “old Bellator guard” vs. “new up and comer.” Ummmmmm. Kongo’s more the longtime UFC vet. Quieroz is 32 and fought in the UFC before his Bellator debut in 2012. That’s just really bad false narrative on this fight.
-Round One – Completely meaningless round. Not Slice-Dada level, but so very little happened in that frame. Quieroz likely took the round with slightly more aggression and a late takedown, but almost nothing happened overall.
-Round Two – Kongo landed an early strike, and worked some leg kicks from the outside, but again so very little happened in the round. Boo birds started in the crowd. Valid. Quieroz then scored a trip takedown, doing just enough on the ground to keep it there. So little happened they were stood up with seconds left, leading to nothing. I have no idea who’s up in this one into the third. Bad fight.
-Round Three – Quieroz got another takedown early, and held position for the first two minutes. Kongo briefly showed some aggression upon getting back to his feet, but then it was back to the clinch. After some separation, Quieroz then dropped him, but as he followed him to the ground he couldn’t do anything more, leading to a stand up with seconds remaining. They traded to the bell, and Quieroz is probably going to win. Then again, who knows? And who cares? This fight, and really the card on the whole, wasn’t any good.
-Kongo wins via split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28). Ok then. Considerable boos from the crowd, and no clue how he gets that third round when he got taken down and knocked down, but so be it. Bad fight with probably a bad decision to close this out tonight.
Thanks for sticking around with us tonight, we’ll be back tomorrow with coverage of the UFC Fight Night 84 event from London!
Note for App Users: For fastest refresh rate on our fight result updates throughout the event, we recommend you visit our mobile-friendly browser-based website at http://www.mmatorch.com. Our App unfortunately doesn’t update article changes in real time, but our mobile site does, so there will be delays in live results on our app but not on our mobile site during the event.
Also for App users, swipe right to view next article, swipe left to view previous article.
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