Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 109, plus Rousimar Palhares signs with World Series of Fighting
Nov 27, 2013 - 2:30:31 PM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 109, plus Rousimar Palhares signs with World Series of Fighting

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

Last weekend saw Bellator close out their ninth season with Bellator 109 on Spike TV. Here's what I thought about that card:

BELLATOR 109

UGLY: Terry Etim vs. Patrick Cenoble

This fight sucked. The less said, the better. Etim won by decision.

GOOD: Will Brooks vs. Alexander Sarnavskiy

Brooks crushed Sarnavskiy. It wasn't even as close as most of the judges scored it. Sarnavskiy had no answer for the takedowns as Brooks just took him down whenever he wanted.

GOOD: Rick Hawn stops Ron Keslar

Keslar started strong, but then faded as his cardio weakened. Hawn got the stoppage in the third round as he stunned Keslar with some nice combos. The fight was essentially ended in the second round, though, as Keslar just absorbed too much damage. Hawn looked great in this fight, and looks primed to win the Bellator Welterweight Championship.

GOOD: Alexander Shlemenko stops Doug Marshall

Shelmenko just devastated Marshall with body shots. It was brutal to watch, I almost expected to see an imprint of Shlemenko's hand on the other side of Marshall's body. Marshall would have knocked Shlemenko's head off if he had connected with any of his wild haymakers, but instead he usually missed badly. He did have a couple moments of nice offense, though, but he also got taken down a few times. Nobody was going to take those body shots from Shlemenko and keep fighting, though, there was just no way.

*************

The World Series of Fighting has signed Rousimar Palhares, about a month after they said there weren't interested. WSOF President Ray Sefo should know better, as he's a fighter himself. Of course, as is usually the case with these smaller companies, they feel that they have to do this stuff to compete. This is just a cry for attention; maybe it'll work, or maybe it blows up in their face.

The one thing that's for certain is that they've ceded the high ground. No matter what happens in the next Palhares fight, WSOF can't plead ignorance. If he doesn't release a hold on time, that's on WSOF as well. Obviously the vast majority of the blame would go to Palhares, but WSOF would also share in that.

Now, maybe Palhares releases a hold on time in his next fight, but what about the fight after that? Or the next one? The scrutiny won't go away after one fight, nor should it. Some will argue that Palhares deserves this opportunity to redeem himself, I strongly disagree with that as I feel his past behavior is abhorrent enough to warrant a ban from organized MMA. At least in the United States, if not everywhere else in the world.


Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank