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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-on-Chief
The broadcast opens up and Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith break down tonight's card. This setup is very unique as they're in a theater for the show, so the cage is set up on stage. This will be quite an interesting event tonight.
[Commercial Break]
-Wheelock and Smith run down the wins by Roger Huerta and Carey Vanier from last week's Bellator 13 event.
FIGHT ONE: MIKE RICCI VS. PAT CURRAN (LIGHTWEIGHT QUARTERFINAL)
PRE FIGHT: Ricci talks about sparring with Georges St. Pierre and the other guys he works with at the Tristar gym, saying "if you don't step up, you're just going to get crushed everyday." He said he'll go as far as he can or has to within the rules to win a fight but will never break the rules to win a fight. Curran doesn't get a pre fight video.
ROUND ONE: Both fighters feel the range out early on. Curran lands a leg kick early. He keeps Ricci back with more straight kicks. The crowd starts to boo a bit due to a lack of action. They trade body kicks. Curran lands another push kick. Curran again with a body kick and he throws the front kick again. Curran walks Ricci down and lands another straight kick. Curran again with a straight kick but this is a very slow pace to the fight right now. Curran lands a body kick and Ricci starts to move forward. Curran lands a good right hook. After some more posturing Curran lands a huge overhand right that crumples Ricci and he follows it with about four unnecessary shots on the ground and the fight is all over. Ricci is out cold on the canvas for a considerable amount of time. That right hand was vicious.
[Commercial Break]
WINNER: Curran via KO at 3:01 of the first round
POST FIGHT: Curran said that was what he wanted. He said he's going to the top and he's going to win this tournament.
STAR RATING: (**+) The KO was excellent from Curran, but the fight was extremely tentative until that point. Still, another highlight reel KO for Bellator. The extra shots on the ground were unnecessary, though, and did some extra damage to Ricci.
[Commercial Break]
FIGHT TWO: WILSON REIS VS. SHAD LIERLEY (FEATHERWEIGHT QUARTERFINAL)
PRE FIGHT: Lierley talked about fighting with his siblings in his household growing up. Reis talked about watching Bruce Lee and growing up wanting to be a fighter. Reis talked about Joe Soto's gameplan in the season one finale being better than his and Soto's boxing being better. He told Joe Soto to be ready because he's ready and he'll beat him.
ROUND ONE: Lierley opens with a right that just misses it's mark. Reis lands a punch and then tries to shoot in for a takedown. Lierley holds him off and then lands a punch and tries to chase him down. Reis took him down but Lierley pulled off a switch and took his back. They worked back to the feet and both fighters started swinging punches. Both fighters landed shots and pushed the other back but then Reis got close for the clinch and worked Lierley around the cage. Lierley threw up a high knee and Reis slammed him hard and dropped into his guard. Reis landed a couple of punches as he tried to break the guard of Lierley. He passes nicely to half guard and pops up to mount. Nice pass. He throws some punches and then tries to go for an armbar. He loses position and Lierley jumps up to his feet. Reis tried to stay on Lierley with a hip toss but wound up on the ground with Lierley on his back. Reis then scrambled and got onto Lierley, bringing him to the ground and taking his back. He dragged him to the ground as he sunk the hooks in. He scrambled and Lierley tried to get out. He locked on an armbar but Lierley got out again. Lierley took Reis' back standing but Reis got out and back to his feet. He took Lierley down and ended the round in his guard. Excellent first round.
Penick's Scorecard: 10-9 Reis. Lierley had some good grappling in that round himself but Reis dominated more of the position and had a couple of near submissions.
[Commercial Break]
ROUND TWO: Lierley lands an early overhand right and Reis shoots in. Lierley stuffs it and gets on top but Reis pulls off a nice sweep and gets into Lierley's guard. Reis passes to half guard. He lands some short punches to the body. He passes and almost gets the mount but Lierley scrambled well and they got back to their feet. Lierley landed a knee as Reis shot in, but Reis caught his knee. He worked the single for a bit and completed the takedown. Reis landed some more short shots. He passed again to half guard. Reis again tried to open things up with short punches and pulled his leg out. Lierley curled up and Reis landed some knees to the abdomen. Reis continued to land short punches and tried to pass out of half guard. Reis landed some more knees to the body. He continued with short punches and Lierley got it back to his guard. Reis landed some more short punches as the round came to an end.
Penick's Scorecard: 10-9 Reis. More ground domination from Reis in that round. This is a fun ground fight to watch right now.
[Commercial Break]
ROUND THREE: Reis landed a good left hook early on. He ducked under a right from Lierley and got another takedown against the cage. Reis passes to side control but Lierley pulls it back to the half guard. Reis passes to the mount nicely. Reis lands some punches from the top as Lierley tries to throw punches from the bottom. Lierley scrambles and gets back to guard. Reis lands a hard left and keeps working with short punches in Lierley's guard. Reis passes to half guard again. Reis again passes to the full mount. Reis lands some punches and stays in the mount as Lierley tries to get out of the position. Reis postures up and rains down a number of punches. Lierley moved to get out from the assault and Reis took his back, locked in a tight rear naked choke and forced the tap. Very impressive stuff from Wilson Reis tonight.
[Commercial Break]
PRE FIGHT: Reis via submission (rear naked choke) 3:33 of the third round
POST FIGHT: Reis said he's trying to improve all of his game but his jiu jitsu is his strength. He said he came to to win the tournament to face the Champion.
STAR RATING: (***) That fight was a lot of fun to watch. Reis was doing a beautiful job passing guard and getting position in the fight, but to Lierley's credit he was doing some great defensive things until trying to roll away from the punches at the end. Reis got that submission locked on quick after Lierley rolled.
[Commercial Break]
-Bellator CEO and Founder Bjorn Rebney comes in to talk about his philosophy for Bellator and this tournament format. He talked about wanting to make the "match-making" irrelevant and let the fighters in the tournament format speak for themselves.
[Commercial Break]
FIGHT THREE: BEN ASKREN VS. RYAN THOMAS (WELTERWEIGHT QUARTERFINAL)
PRE FIGHT: Thomas said he doesn't see Askren's Olympic wrestling giving Askren an advantage. He said he'll see how much the wrestling works when Askren has "my fist in his face and my foot up his ass." Askren said he's not done in wrestling as he'll be heading back to the Olympics in 2012. He said he plans to climb up to the top of the MMA world using the same work ethic that has brought him success in amateur wrestling.
ROUND ONE: Askren comes out to the center and starts to walk Thomas down. Thomas cracks Askren with a couple of punches. Askren shoots in and grabs a body lock and picks Thomas up, driving him forward for the takedown. Thomas is staying very active from the bottom and nearly locks Askren in a triangle! Askren powers out and into half guard. Askren goes for a D'arce choke but Thomas rolls through and gets on top. Askren sweeps nicely and Thomas tries to sprawl at the cage. Askren stood up and grabbed a single leg and tripped Thomas up. Thomas tried to throw up for the triangle again. Askren grabbed for a guillotine and rolled over and Thomas was in a strange position. The ref looked right at Thomas and called the fight. There was no submission here. That was a terrible stoppage. Askren had a neck crank and Thomas just had his eyes closed, that was not a submission. Thomas tried to plead his case to no avail. That's controversy Bellator doesn't want for the tournament.
[Commercial Break]
WINNER: Askren via technical submission 2:40 of the first round
POST FIGHT: The ref explained that he asked Thomas for a sign and didn't get one from Thomas and so he called the fight. Thomas said he had his head caught on both sides and was just confused and called it the worst call he has ever seen. He didn't blame Askren. Askren said he didn't know what the ref saw but he knew Thomas didn't tap. He said he'll rematch Thomas if he wants. He said he'll fight any day of the week. He said he dislocated his finger in training and has been going ahead with just one hand for a few weeks.
STAR RATING: (**) It was on its way to being a good back and forth battle before one of the worst examples of reffing we've seen in MMA in 2010. There was a split second from when the ref could have "asked for a sign" to when he stopped the bout, so he didn't give Thomas a chance at all to get out of that. Terrible, terrible stoppage, but Askren moves on nonetheless. If anyone in the tournament goes down with an injury before their first round bout in the next couple of weeks Thomas should get a second chance.
[Commercial Break]
FIGHT FOUR: TOBY IMADA VS. JAMES KRAUSE (LIGHTWEIGHT QUARTERFINAL)
PRE FIGHT: Wheelock says Krause cut from 190 lb. down to the 155 lb. limit in a week for tonight's fight! That's insane. Imada talked about his inverted triangle submission over Jorge Masvidal from season one. He said he's always going to look for the finish, and he'll keep going until he gets another shot at Eddie Alvarez.
ROUND ONE: Imada hopped side to side a little bit and engaged with a nice right hook. Krause tried to walk Imada down but Imada is very active. Imada pushes Krause to the cage with combinations and just misses on some wild and winging combinations. Krause misses a couple more punches. He lands a leg kick and a body kick. He tried to throw a push kick but Imada caught it and took him down. Imada tried to posture up and Krause tried to scramble. Imada scrambled himself and briefly got Krause's back before another scramble saw him on top in half guard. He moved to side control. Krause threw his legs up to push Imada off but Imada stayed on top. He spun Krause over and then got an omoplata. Krause rolled out of it and got on top of Imada in half guard. Imada threw his legs up looking for an arm but Krause got him off. Krause stood up and ate an up kick from Imada. He dropped in with a right and back into Imada's guard. Krause passed to half guard. Imada got it back to guard. Imada landed some punches from the bottom and rolled for a leg. He got back to his feet as the round ended.
Penick's Scorecard: 10-9 Imada. Krause came back by the end of the round, but Imada controlled more of that on the ground.
[Commercial Break]
ROUND TWO: Imada caught an early knee and took Krause down. Krause is scrambling nicely as Imada keeps control of him. Krause got up and pushed Imada to the cage and took him down. Imada grabbed his arm and looked for a kimura. He let it go and made it back to his feet. He pushed Krause to the cage, grabbed a double leg and completed the takedown into Krause's guard. Krause scrambled again and rolled to his knees. He then swept Imada and got into top position. Imada throws his legs up for a triangle, as Krause tried to pull out his arm was caught and he yelled out a verbal submission as he was falling to the ground. Good fight.
[Commercial Break]
WINNER: Imada via submission (armbar) at 2:44 of the first round.
POST FIGHT: Imada said he just wanted to finish the fight, and that's always his goal. He said he switched over to the armbar instead of expending energy trying to get that triangle locked in.
STAR RATING: (***-) That was a fun fight. Krause didn't really look to be too worse for the wear after that weight cut, and had some nice scrambles for position in the fight. But on short notice, Imada was the better man tonight.
-That's another week of Bellator Fighting Championships action in the books, and they're back next Thursday with Bellator 15 from the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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