Bellator 136 took place tonight (Friday, April 10, 2015) at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, California, and overall the card was exciting as it featured a lightweight title fight and several other top performances from some solid veterans. Overall from a betting perspective, four favorites and three underdog wons based on the closing odds at Several Bookmakers. Here’s a quick recap for each fight. Favorites That Won In the main event of the evening, Bellator lightweight champion Will Brooks successfully defended his title against Dave Jansen. Jansen came out firing on all cylinders to steal the first round, but he quickly ran out of steam as the champ adjusted to his wild style. Brooks was able to relatively easily take the last four rounds and while he couldn’t secure a finish, he did more than enough to sway the judges to side with him for a unanimous decision victory. Brooks came through as a lofty -850 (Bet $850 to win $100) favorite while Janson put up a valiant effort as a +668 (Bet $100 to win $668) underdog. In lightweight action, Marcin Held did what he does best against lightweight Alexander Sarnavskiy, outgrappling the Russian with a beautiful display of ground skills, eventually forcing a verbal submission with one of his patented leg locks. Held was victorious as a slight -130 favorite while Sarnavskiy has to go back to the drawing board as a +120 underdog. In middleweight action, Joey Beltran eeked out a majority decison over Brian Rogers by the skin of his teeth. Rogers was in full control after the first round, but Beltran hurt him badly, landing over 80 strikes in the second round and nearly finishing the fight on multiple occasions. Rogers regained his wits and seemed to make the third round very competitive, but two judges sided with Beltran to give “The Mexicutioner” his first win in the new weight class. Beltran came through at -115 while Rogers barely lost at -105. On the preliminary card, lightweights Saad Awad and Rob Sinclair put on an entertaining mixed martial arts display. Sinclair tried his best, but the long injury layoff left him just rusty enough to not allow the former BAMMA lightweight champion to find his timing or distance with his strikes. Awad walked away with a unanimous decision as a -185 favorite while Sinclair couldn’t pull off the upset as a +160 dog. Underdogs That Won In middleweight action, Glory kickboxer Joe Schilling took another stab at MMA, but found himself on the receiving end of some surprising grappling from Rafael Carvalho, who edged out the last two rounds to steal a split decision victory. Schilling came up short as a -155 favorite while Carvalho stepped up big as a +145 dog. In the first bout of the main card, Tony Johnson pulled off a huge shocker when he defeated former Bellator Heavyweight Champion Alexander Volkov via split decision. Both men had their moments, but it was Johnson who did just enough to earn the judges’ nod. Johnson came through as a sizable +240 underdog while Volkov hit a speed bump as a -260 favorite. In the main event of the evening, Marcos Galvao challenged bantamweight champion Joe Warren for the Bellator 135 pound title. Both men had their moments in the first round, but Galvao shocked the world when he landed a brutal kneebar in round two where referee John McCarthy stepped in and put a stop to the contest when Warren audibly screamed in pain, ending the contest via verbal submission. Galvao earned his redemption as +150 underdog while Warren failed to defend his belt at -160. On the Spike.com preliminary card, John Teixeira defeated featherweight prospect via surprising split decision, outworking the Brazilian just enough to edge it out on two of the three judges’ scorecards. Teixeira cashed as a +190 underdog while Guerreiro failed to deliver as a -230 favorite.
