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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The eighth and final participant in Bellator's fourth season welterweight tournament is now set, as the organization on Thursday confirmed the participation of veteran Jay Hieron. Hieron had previously been reported for the tournament, and it is now official.
"Jay's the perfect fighter to round out our stacked welterweight tournament," said Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney. "He's a true mixed martial artist who has very few weaknesses and a ton of strengths inside the cage. Jay will be a tremendous test for anyone and everyone in this talent rich tournament."
Hieron signed with Bellator late last year after the end of his tumultuous relationship with Strikeforce. It had been expected that he would make the move back to the UFC on his seven fight win streak, but he opted to take part in the tournament field instead.
“I feel great right now. I turned a negative into a positive with my time off and just took the opportunity to sharpen my skills," said Hieron. "When you're training for a fight, the pressure's on, so it'' hard to learn and evolve. It's straight business. With this time off I've been able to focus on a lot of new techniques. Now I'm just excited to get back in there and show off my new arsenal."
In addition to promising some new tricks up his sleeve, Hieron took a shot at his prior organization in Thursday's release.
"This is the exact type of situation I wanted to be in right now. With the tournament format, there's no politics, no golden boys, and nobody getting protected, there's none of that. If you win you move forward, and that's that. That's the bottom line and that's exactly what I was looking for. I feel like I've been through as bad a situation that somebody can go through in their career, and I'm still here. Not only that, but my body's right, I'm healthy, and I feel like it's my time."
Hieron completes a field that will also feature Lyman Good, Dan Hornbuckle, Rick Hawn, Steve Carl, Chris Lozano, "Judo" Jim Wallhead, and Brent Weedman. Season four begins in March, airing live weekly on MTV2.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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