 |
| Hector Lombard |
ATLANTIC CITY (The Phanatic Magazine) - Bellator middleweight champ Hector Lombard battered Falaniko Vitale in the main event of Bellator 44 televised live on MTV2 from Caesars Atlantic City.
After a pair of very dull rounds Lombard (29-2-1), a former Olympian in judo and perhaps Bellator's most dominating presence, finally woke up a disinterested crowd with a devastating right cross that sent Vitale (29-10) to the canvas at 54 seconds of Round 3.
Up until that point Lombard was mailing in a lethargic performance against Vitale, a UFC veteran, in a non-title, so-called "Super Fight." With no championship on the line, Lombard failed to fight with any sense of urgency early and the fans turned on the bout by the second round.
Lombard finally answered the catcalls by unleashing the vicious right hand that ended things in what the champ called "just another day at the office."
The co-main event was the classic striker versus wrestler matchup as Brazilian Knockout artist Patricky "Pitbull" Freire and former NCAA wrestling champion Michael Chandler met in the finals of the Season 4 Bellator Lightweight Tournament Championship.
Chandler (8-0), who wrestled at the University of Missouri, spent far too much of his time standing and trading blows with Freire (9-2) but he held his own en route to a unanimous decision.
A second low blow by Chandler in the third round, however, cost him a point and gave a tired Pitbull plenty of time to regroup. It didn't matter as Chandler scored with a huge suplex before dominating things on the ground for the rest of the way to earn the tourney title, $100,000 and a championship shot against Eddie Alvarez. All three scorecards had it 29-27 for Chandler.
"I extremely sorry of those kicks," said Chandler. "I have to work on that and I will. Patricky is the man. I am just thrilled to get the win."
"I was hugely impressed with the performances our fighters put forth in our cage tonight," added Bellator Chairman & CEO Bjorn Rebney. "The Pitbull-Chandler fight was an epic battle that had the audience out of their seats. Mike Chandler is a very special talent at 155. And, Lombard's one-punch knockout was another Youtube KO for our Middleweight Champion. A great crowd got to see great fights live here at Caesars."
In other televised encounters veteran Alexander Shlemenko won a Season 5 Middleweight qualifier by besting Brett Cooper by unanimous decision. It was pretty evident early on that Cooper (12-6) didn't feel he belonged with Shlemenko (39-7) and the Russian spent the early moments stalking his prey until a wild right by Copper caught him and opened a cut under his left eye.
That buoyed Cooper's confidence and he hung in but always seemed to be a second away from disaster. Shlemenko, the winner of Bellator's Season 2 middleweight tourney, really had his way with a spinning back fist but showed nothing at all when things went to the ground.
Cooper never really figured that out and was content to swing, especially when both fighters tired by the third round. Shlemenko took all three scorecards, 30-27, 29-28, 29-28, and is now 17-2 over his last 19 fights as he attempts to earn another shot at Lombard.
Locally, the main event was Philadelphia native Sam Oropeza making his Bellator debut against Giedrius Karavackas, who now calls Somers Point, NJ home.
Oropeza (4-2), a lengthy southpaw that almost resembles Tayshaun Prince in the cage, trains with Alvarez and brought along a ton of supporters that greeted him with chants of "Sammy O, Sammy O."
He was on the verge on finishing Karavackas (5-1) late in Round 1, raining down blows from the guard until the bell sounded. Failing to finish would haunt Oropeza as Karavackas began solving his length and by the third round was dominating, using side control to fire punch after punch at a helpless Oropeza's face.
The fan favorite finally gave up the left arm for an arm lock submission with just over a minute left in the round. It's conceivable Oropeza could have taken a decision if he held on but Karavackas dominated the third so thoroughly it probably would have been a 10-8 frame.
In the opening bout of the evening, middleweight Jay Silva dominated Gemiyale "Baby Hercules" en route to a unanimous decision. The scorecards read 30-26, 30-27 and 30-27 for Silva (7-4), a Newark, NJ native fighting out of Hunington Beach, Calif, who battered his opponent with vicious knees throughout. Adkins
(6-2) of Newark, Delaware took an illegal knee to the head in Round 1 and was given time to recover while the ringside doctor checked his vision. About all he could do for the rest of the fight, however, was try to grab Silva's ankle a few times in a hollow attempt at a submission. Adkins came in out of shape and it showed.
Former TUF (The Ultimate Fighter) competitor and New Jersey native Jeff Lentz topped Bellator and Strikeforce veteran Anthony Leone in a lightweight encounter, taking a unanimous decision. After a first round that was fairly even, Lentz (7-3) dominated things on the ground although he was never close to finishing Leone (8-3). All three scorecards gave Leone Round 1 and Lentz the final two frames.
Finally, in a post-TV heavyweight bout, the unimpressive looking Randy Smith (11-9-1) was choked out by Jamall Johnson (3-1) at 4:16 of the second round.
Notes: Former Bellator welterweight champ Lyman Good was scheduled to face Dan Hornbuckle but pulled out on May 6 with a hamstring injury...The scheduled bout between Philadelphia's Anthony Morrison and Bryan Goldsby was also canceled when Morrison, aptly nicknamed "Cheesesteak," failed to make the 135-pound bantamweight limit, coming in way over at 146.5...The last time the promotion was in the area was for Bellator 33 when Philadelphia's own Alvarez, one of the top-ranked lightweights in the world, stopped former UFC star Roger Huerta at the Liacouras Center in North Philly.
No comments:
Post a Comment