As is bound to happen when a promotion undertakes the task of putting on a fight card every week, Bellator had to do some serious reshuffling of the card featuring the opening round of their welterweight tournament. Luckily for the promotion, the centerpiece of the entire card hasn’t changed as Daniel Straus will still defend his featherweight title against former champion Pat Curran in a rematch of their November bout, and a rubber match between the two dating back to 2009. The welterweight tournament was set to feature notables such as ‘Fight Master’ winner Joe Riggs and the loquacious Mr. Machine, but both were forced out due to injuries. UFC veteran Mark Scanlon was also an original member of the eight-man bracket but was forced out. In their place, wrestlers Paul Bradley, Nathan Coy, and Cristiano Souza have stepped up on short notice for their shot at $100,000 and a shot at the winner of the Douglas Lima-Rick Hawn bout set for April 18th. Today, MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas opened the betting lines for Bellator 112 at Several Bookmakers. Take a look: ——————– MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 9pm ET) Bellator Featherweight Title Daniel Straus -180 Pat Curran +140 Welterweight Tournament Quarterfinals Andrey Koreshkov -405 Nah-Shon Burrell +285 Cristiano Souza -260 Sam Oropeza +180 Jesse Juarez -230 Adam McDonough +170 ——————– PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 7pm ET) Paul Bradley -160 Nathan Coy +120 ——————– Brad’s Analysis: Isn’t it crazy how much of a difference 25 minutes can make? The last time Pat Curran and Daniel Straus fought, Curran closed at -430 and as we all know, Straus ended up coming through with the victory despite being a +380 underdog. Now Straus is the one favored, and I can’t disagree. I think a lot of people were approaching their last bout with an “MMA math” type of mentality, rather than looking at the styles. Curran simply doesn’t throw enough volume — or fight with enough urgency in general — to have more than a puncher’s chance against Straus. However, because Curran is so accurate and has so much power, it’s a much greater puncher’s chance than normal. Still, Curran is the same fighter who was taken down in each of the opening rounds and controlled a bit by Joe Warren and that’s something everyone seemed to either forget — or ignore — heading into the Straus fight. Straus hasn’t been finished since his first fight with Curran back in 2009, and I would be a bit surprised to see him get stopped here. Despite going 4-2 combined in Strikeforce and the UFC, Nah-Shon Burrell was cut after his first UFC loss because his performance was so uninspiring. Burrell is the type of fighter who isn’t really great at anything, and that’s going to hurt him here, as Koreshkov is a better striker and a good enough wrestler to keep Burrell from consistently getting top position. Don’t let the Askren fight fool you, against fighters who aren’t otherworldly wrestlers, Koreshkov is still a very good fighter and he’s a likely finalist in this tournament. The Souza/Oropeza fight is one I don’t have a particularly good read on, as I find both fighters to be overrated. Oropeza started off his career finding a decent amount of success as a grappler, but has started favoring his hands more after being submitted twice in unorthodox fashion. Souza has his capoeira striking base, but I think he can actually do well if he takes the lankier Oropeza down in this bout. Two fighters who are both flawed and whose gameplans could be hard to predict makes for a fight I’m not interested in betting. On the other hand, we know that Jesse Juarez is probably going to come out and wrestle. Against Adam McDonough who is a talented striker, but overextends himself, that’s probably the way to go. McDonough didn’t show anything from his back when taken down in his last Bellator fight, and against a better wrestler and overall grappler in Juarez, that’s going to be his downfall. Finally, probably the second or third best fight on this card (but one that seems destined to be rather boring) is the wrestler versus wrestler battle between Nathan Coy and Paul Bradley. These two have fought once before, with Bradley taking the split decision back in 2009. That fight took place about a year into Coy’s MMA career, and it will be interesting to see how their respective seasoning affects this fight. In the end, I lean ever so slightly to Bradley, as he’s proven a bit more durable and who knows how much Coy has left at 35 years-old. Hard to bet this fight unless the line move pretty drastically in one way though.
