Another night of MMA and kickboxing will be coming to Spike this June, as the network plays host to Bellator’s “Dynamite 2” event headlined by the return of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
The organization announced on Wednesday that Jackson will face Japan’s Satoshi Ishii in the main event of the June 24 card, which will emanate from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Mo. That’s the first and only bout announced for the event thus far, but just like with the September 2015 “Dynamite 1” event, there will be both an MMA cage and a kickboxing ring set up in the arena. This time around, the kickboxing portion will fall under the new Bellator Kickboxing banner.
Jackson is returning to Bellator after reaching a settlement on their respective lawsuits against one another. The longtime veteran managed to get a fight back in the UFC in the spring of 2015, but after an injunction nearly took him off that UFC 186 card, the UFC opted not to book him again until the dispute was settled.
Ishii, a former Olympian in Judo, entered MMA in 2009, and has posted a 14-5-1 career record. The 29-year-old was most recently knocked out by Jiri Prochazka in the quarterfinals of Rizin’s heavyweight tournament in December.
Penick’s Analysis: It’s a fine enough fight for Rampage’s return. He’s a feature act at this point, and this is a matchup that can be a showcase for him. He’s likely to finish out this Bellator deal and head back to the UFC if they’ll have him, so a win is still important for him, but for now it’s kind of like he’s treading water, and this is the right type of fight for him to have in a Bellator cage in 2016. Now we’ll just have to see what else they can put together for this event, and whether or not it can be pulled off a bit better than the first Dynamite card.
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