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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
After announcing the matchups for their second season's featherweight tournament, Bellator Fighting Championships has locked up the final two pieces of their welterweight tournament as well with the additions of 12-5 Brett Cooper and 10-3 former UFC fighter Ryan Thomas.
The organization announced the signings Wednesday.
Cooper was headed to a bout on Affliction's ill-fated "Trilogy" event last summer before taking a fight on the "Ultimate Chaos" pay-per-view event and being knocked out in an upset. That was his lone loss in his last eight fights, and six of those have come by way of knockout. He'll be looking to do some damage here to his tournament foes through the course of the tournament.
Thomas was a fast rising 9-1 welterweight, with all of his victories coming by submission or TKO, before running into consecutive armbar losses in two bouts in the Octagon in 2008. To his credit, those came against very tough fighters in Ben Saunders and Matt Brown. He returned to action last August with a quick triangle choke submission over Ryan Stout in a bout in Indiana. He should be considered among the favorites in the tournament..
Bellator's second season begins on April 8th, and airs live every Thursday on Fox Sports Net. The welterweight tournament also features NCAA D-1 wrestling Champ Ben Askren, highly touted welterweight Dan Hornbuckle and then Jim Wallhead, Jacob McClintock, Steve Carl and Sean Pierson to round it out.
Penick's Analysis: This is another good roster of fighters for this tournament. It's going to be tough for any of them to come out on top, but Hornbuckle and Thomas are definitely the two favorites here, and a final between the two would be an extremely exciting way to close out this tournament. April 8th can't come soon enough right now!
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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