The Kansas Star Arena in Mulvane, Kansas plays host to the continuation os Bellator’s season 9 featherweight tournament tonight (Oct. 11, 2013), and features two fights with Bellator standouts from previous seasons. All in all, it looks like another solid Bellator card that should deliver the action in the cage on Spike TV. The main event features the smaller of the Pitbull Bros., as Patricio Freire (19-2) looks to continue his terrifying climb back up the featherweight mountain, hot off the heels of his 79-second knockout of Diego Nunes at Bellator 99 and 2nd round TKO of Jared Downing at Bellator 97. His opponent in this semifinal is Fabricio Guerreiro (19-2). Guerreiro is touted as a submission specialist, and he defeated Desmond Green in a lackluster effort at Bellator 99, but this could be a steamroll for Pitbull. Guerreiro can pull off an early submission, he has 11 first round subs in fact, but Pitbull is a monster right now, he’s going for Curran’s belt, and I don’t think anything could stop him. Pitbull’s only two losses come in controversial decisions to Joe Warren and Pat Curran, so unless something really, really crazy happens and we get a Hail Mary sub, this should be all Pitbull with his heavy hands doing damage early. In the next featherweight semifinal match, Justin Wilcox (12-5-1) looks to continue to reinvent himself post-disappointing Strikeforce run with a win over Joe Taimanglo (19-4). Wilcox was actually losing to Akop Stepanyan at Bellator 99 before he sunk in a rear naked choke to win, which is starting to become an unhealthy habit in his career. He’s constantly fighting in gritty, back-and-forth battles that usually don’t end up like that one. His opponent, hailing from Guam, is currently on a 10-fight winning streak, and is a definite finisher, brandishing 11 sub wins and four knockouts in his career. Wilcox, despite his middling record and difficulty to clearly win in the big leagues, is Taimanglo’s stiffest test in his career, for what it’s worth. This could turn into the exact fight Wilcox doesn’t want – an ugly, battle where he can’t land any clear offense and has to battle back in order to win. Those types of fights are exactly Taimanglo’s specialty. There is a lot of ‘x-factor’ in this match, as it could possibly take some unexpected turns as the clock ticks down. Very likely could be a show-stealer. To round out the card, Bellator is keeping a few of their fan favorites busy as Dave Rickels (14-2) will try to bounce back from his knockout loss to Michael Chandler in July, to JJ Ambrose (19-4). Rickels has improved greatly during his time in Bellator, winning the season eight lightweight tournament after falling to Karl Amoussou at Bellator 69. Rickels is a slow, but rapidly-developing grinder, who has vastly underrated stand-up and has a way of getting fights where he wants them. Ambrose, however, is more skilled than Rickels just about everywhere. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should count Rickels out.Yyou’ve probably learned by now that you can never count him out, but on paper Ambrose is the better and more technical overall fighter and has the ability to finish anytime and anywhere with his sneaky submissions. In the next feature fight, light heavyweights will enter the Bellator cage as Aaron Rosa (17-5) will make his Bellator debut after going 1-2 in the UFC in a series of slugfests, against Bellator-scouted Russian™ Mikhail Zayats (21-7) who wants to redeem his loss to Emmanuel Newton in the light heavyweight tournament. Zayats is a striker by trade, and Rosa can get sucked into a brawl, which plays right into Zayats’ dangerous hands. Rosa also hasn’t fought since May of 2012, so ring rust will be a definite factor in this battle. Expect both men to meet in the middle of the cage and go hard, In the clinch, Zayats holds the advantage, and can finish most men with submissions from just about anywhere (11 subs in his career). Rosa will likely try to stay away and pepper the Russian with his decently heavy hands. But this was put together to showcase Zayats in the end.
