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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Bellator has officially announced their plans for a third featherweight tournament coming in their fourth season, which is set to debut on MTV2 this March.
The eight man tournament will earn the winner $100,000 and a shot at Bellator Featherweight Champion Joe Warren in a future season of Bellator Fighting Championships. With the announcement of the tournament itself, the organization also confirmed the first participant in Eric Larkin.
"I'm thrilled to announce Eric Larkin as our first confirmed participant in our upcoming Featherweight Tournament," said Bellator chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney. "Eric has unlimited potential in this sport, and I'm excited to see how he does in this stacked tournament."
Larkin trains out of the Lion's Den in Scottsdale, Arizona, alongside current Bellator Welterweight Champion Ben Askren. He is a former national champion wrestler from the University of Arizona who was nominated for ESPN's ESPY awards in 2003 for "best college athlete."
Larkin is making the drop to featherweight after starting his career 3-0 at lightweight; but much like the man whose belt he's chasing, he is looking forward to the challenge of taking on more experienced fighters in this tournament.
"I'm definitely looking forward to this upcoming tournament,” Larkin said. “I know there are going to be some really tough guys in there. I'm not taking anyone lightly. I'm going to do my thing and get after it. I like fighting back-to-back so it's going to be fun.”
"The major benefits I'm going to get from dropping down to 145 are primarily going to be strength and leverage. I definitely feel like I'm going to be stronger at 145 than I would be at 155. At lightweight, there are guys cutting down from 180 and 190 to make the weight and I'm not even close to that. I think this cut to featherweight is going to be great for me."
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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