Tuesday proved to be one of Bellator MMA’s biggest days in quite some time. Not only did the USA’s second-largest mixed martial arts promotion announce its return to action will come on April 2, Bellator revealed a significant amount of its future plans, including a number of big fights and a new broadcast home: Showtime, which will air mixed martial arts bouts for the first time since the end of Strikeforce in 2013.
The Showtime announcement was a happy surprise: I have very fond memories of watching fights on that network, from EliteXC to Strikeforce to boxing. But one revelation at Bellator’s press conference came as no surprise at all. It’s been the worst kept secret in MMA that Bellator has been gearing up for a light heavyweight grand prix. Now, officially, it’s happening.
The grand prix reveal comes after a 2020 where Bellator signed former UFC contenders Corey Anderson, Yoel Romero and Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, while crowning an exciting young champion in Vadim Nemkov. With the COVID-delayed featherweight grand prix set to start its semifinals in April, it was obvious that if Bellator planned on continuing its trend of one grand prix tournament a year, the light heavyweights were going to be the obvious choice.
There simply exists no better way to debut your newly signed talent, and potentially put over your talented young star. The light heavyweight grand prix will be one of the major things to look forward to this year in Bellator – here’s a look at the field.
Vadim Nemkov
Casual fans will know the name Vadim Nemkov much less than they will Johnson, Romero or Lyoto Machida. But the the 28-year-old Russian champion ranks as one of the most exciting and promising light heavyweights anywhere in the world, and he received his crowning moment when he beat the brakes off of Ryan Bader to win the Bellator title. Despite the presence of bigger names, Nemkov will enter the tournament as the betting favorite.
That’s no mistake. A protege of the legendary Fedor Emelianenko, Nemkov has competed in sambo at a world-class level parallel to his MMA career, winning four world gold medals between 2014-19. That fantastic submission wrestling base shines through when Nemkov is in the cage, but he’s also developed into a high-level striker.
Nemkov has knockout power in his hands and his feet, is dangerous everywhere, mixes everything together extremely well, and has a killer instinct. He’s seemingly improving by leaps and bounds every time he steps into the Bellator circle, and he promises to be one of the promotion’s building block stars in future years. He can receive that coronation in this tournament.
Anthony “Rumble” Johnson
He’ll have heavy competition if he wants to pull that off, and no one might prove a more challenging test than Anthony “Rumble” Johnson. Well, maybe. We don’t know exactly what we’re going to see out of Rumble just yet. When last we saw Rumble in MMA competition, he was one of the most fearsome knockout threats in the world, a truly intimidating badass who spent 2014-17 absolutely running through some of the UFC’s best light heavyweights.
But despite his dominance at 205, he couldn’t quite get past champion Daniel Cormier, whose unimpeachable wrestling ability led to two submission losses for Rumble in title fights. After the second defeat, in April 2017, Johnson announced his retirement from the sport, after an incredibly winding road that took him in and out of the UFC through four different weight classes.
Rumble has always tended towards being a really beefy guy, and it was when he fully embraced the beef and stopped killing himself trying to make 170 and 185 that his career really took off. The kind of shape Rumble is going to be in may be the biggest determining factor of his success – that, and the unpredictable effect of a long layoff. When Rumble signed with Bellator late last year, it was originally reported he would be fighting at heavyweight, but Rumble later admitted that was only because he had gotten pretty fat.
Will Anthony Johnson return as the fearsome force he was a few years ago? We won’t have any idea until he finally steps into the cage. His return is one of the most highly anticipated storylines of this tournament, and how it plays out will determine everything to come.
Yoel Romero
Bellator will be debuting one more big name in the light heavyweight grand prix: 43-year-old Yoel Romero, returning to 205 pounds for the first time since 2011 after a highly successful UFC run that saw him challenge for middleweight gold three times. It would have been four, but he missed weight against Luke Rockhold in 2018 and thus didn’t walk away with interim gold when he knocked Rockhold out in the third round.
Like Johnson, Romero is a complete wild card. He’s one of the oldest fighters in the sport and is fighting at a new weight class. His last fight, where he stood in place and essentially refused to engage Israel Adesanya for five rounds last March, was one of the most farcical showings I’ve ever seen. But even until the end of his UFC run, he was competing against some of the best middleweights in the world – he’s lost four of five, but those losses came to Adesanya, Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa.
Romero is a real-life rock golem with huge punching power, truly freakish explosive athleticism, an Olympic silver medal in wrestling, and what appears to be a physiological inability to get knocked out. But at a certain point, his age is bound to catch up with him – we might have been seeing it start to happen at the tail end of his UFC run.
Romero and Johnson are going to meet in what will easily be the most highly anticipated of the four quarterfinal matchups. It’ll either be the most aggressive staring contest of all time, or a real-life Godzilla vs. King Kong showdown that will render the entire state of Connecticut dead from the shockwaves. I simply cannot wait.
The opening odds for the Bellator light heavyweight grand prix gave veteran Phil Davis just 16-to-1 odds to win the whole thing – smart bettors will put a few bucks down on “Mr. Wonderful.” A former UFC top contender who held the Bellator light heavyweight title after switching promotions, Davis has quietly been one of the most durable and successful 205ers in the world over the past decade. The list of people to beat Davis is a short and distinguished one: Johnson, Bader (twice, both by split decision), Rashad Evans and Nemkov (also by split decision). He’s never been finished, and keeps grinding out wins.
Davis has never been particularly exciting, or a fan favorite. What he is, is finely calculated athlete who knows perfectly well his advantages and how to deploy them in the cage. He’s a great athlete with a long reach and an excellent wrestling background, and uses those traits with one goal in mind: to win, no matter if it excites the crowd or not.
Davis’ style has lent itself to plenty of dull jab fests and wrestling matches, but he’s undeniably been very good at what he does. And considering his high level of experience against over half the rest of the field, I could see him getting back in the lab and decisioning his way to the top. I’d give that a lot better than 16-to-1 odds.
Ryan Bader
A lot like Davis, 37-year-old Ryan Bader has ranked for quite some time as one of the most underrated 205-pounders in the world – even as he dominated Bellator’s upper weight classes for almost half a decade. Bader immediately beat Davis for the 205-pound title upon joining Bellator in 2017, but only defended the title once over the next three years as he pursued adventures at heavyweight, where he won another belt in 2018.
Bader finally returned to light heavyweight in August, getting knocked out in the second round by Nemkov and losing one of his two titles. At the time, I just figured he would go to heavyweight full-time – I distinctly remember seeing a very drawn-out Bader on the scale before the Nemkov fight and thinking that there’s no way he’d sign up for this weight cut again. Nevertheless, here he is, signing up for this weight cut again.
Nemkov looked clearly on a different level from Bader in their fight a few months ago, so we’ll see if Bader even has much juice left to give at 205. Still, he’s a current champion who has been extremely successful throughout his career in both the UFC and Bellator, boasting strong punching power and very good wrestling. A prime Bader has the tools to go all the way – we’ll just have to see how much of an approximation of “prime Bader” we get.
Corey Anderson
The arrivals of Yoel Romero and Anthony Johnson have sparked a lot of interest in this tournament, but that shouldn’t overshadow the presence of the third former UFC star to join Bellator’s light heavyweight division in 2020. 31-year-old Corey Anderson was in the top five of the UFC rankings when he squabbled with the UFC over his pay, got himself released, and moved to Bellator last year. There’s no better barometer for the talent level of Bellator’s 205-pound weight class than this: drop a top UFC contender, in his prime, into their field and see how he does.
No one’s been talking about Anderson over the past week, but he’s my biggest dark horse to win it. Anderson won four out of his last five UFC fights – his only loss coming to Jan Blachowicz, now the champion – beating the likes of current No. 1 contender Glover Teixeira while showcasing what appeared to be an improved and more confident striking game.
At his core, Anderson is an energetic and active wrestler with a long reach who’s going to be a really tough matchup for anyone Bellator can toss at him. Anderson beat an aged Melvin Manhoef in a completely uncompetitive Bellator debut in November, and he’s overdue to really get into the game. Once the tournament starts, I don’t think he’ll be under the radar for long.
Lyoto Machida
Only one man in this field has held a UFC light heavyweight title, and it’s a name that absolutely nobody is talking about. In 2009, Lyoto Machida used his unique, karate-based counter-striking style to usher in what commentator Mike Goldberg called the “Machida Era,” winning the belt with a masterful destruction of then-champion Rashad Evans.
Over the next decade, people figured Machida out, and he returned to Earth. Still, he’s always been a very difficult fighter to approach, even as he moves into his 40s. Machida has switched between middleweight and light heavyweight for quite some time, but even in the last few years he’s shown flashes of “the Dragon” who stormed through the UFC on his way to a world title.
Machida, for better or for worse, still looks more or less like himself. He’s in great physical condition at 42 years old, and he can still work some magic when his opponents are willing to take the lead. When they don’t, he’s still not interested in extending himself, which has led to quite a few snoozers. That includes his last fight, a rematch with Davis last September, which turned into a split decision loss for Machida.
Machida comes in expected to be a first-round out. I can see that happening, especially at his age. But I could also see him using his still-sharp skills to string together a couple wins and make an underdog run.
And now we come to the guy who made everyone looking at the bracket say, “Who?” Name recognition or no, 31-year-old Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov looks like a very capable add to the Bellator light heavyweight division and someone who should not be counted out.
Yagshimuradov will be debuting in Bellator after winning the light heavyweight championship in ACA, a major MMA promotion based in Russia that has produced quite a few really excellent fighters. Bellator has been really on point with its signings out of Russian promotions lately, including bantamweight grappling ace Magomed Magomedov (the only man to beat current UFC champ Petr Yan) and Khasan Magomedsharipov, the talented younger brother of UFC featherweight contender Zabit Magomedsharipov. They hope Yagshimuradov can provide similar depth to its 205-pound division.
Built like a grizzly bear at 5-foot-11, Yagshimuradov has gone undefeated since 2016, winning his last eight fights, six by decision. The native of Turkmenistan has big power on the feet – he mixes in some sweet kicks – and has strong wrestling that he’s used well to set up ground-and-pound and submissions in the past. As the biggest unknown in the tournament, Yagshimuradov will come in with few expectations. He just might surprise a few people.
The Big Fight 