Less Than A Week Until Bellator 81
Bellator 81 Promotional Poster
November 16th is getting eerily close and Rhode Island is ready to welcome the Bellator Fighting Championship. The fights will be held at the University of Rhode Island’s Ryan Center so you can be sure that the crowd will be excited on fight night for Bellator’s debut in the state.
The match-ups are to include two lightweight semifinal tournament fights along with a middleweight and featherweight featured fights. These four fights will be aired live on MTV2. In addition to this there will be additional prelim fights before the television covereage starts. There was also some last minute and possibly controversial changes and Dan McGuane was removed from the fight card due to a prior conviction. For more information on this CLICK HERE
The Televised Bouts
The four fights that will be televised are the most promising fights of the night, naturally. The middleweight featured fight is between Perry Filkins Vs. Jonas Billstein, and the featherweight featured fight is between Dustin Neance Vs. Marlon Sandro. The other two featured fights are lightweight semifinal tournament bouts, Dave Janson Vs. Ricardo Tirloni and Marcin Held vs Rich Clementi
Middleweight and Featherweight
Middleweight fighter Perry Filkens is a powerful striker who has won all of his professional fights by knockout and only lost one by decision. His opponent Jonas Billstein is also a powerful striker winning many fights by TKO but he has wins by submission as well. Since both of these fighters are “stand up guys” this once could potentially turn into an exciting match.
Featherweight fighter Dustin Neance is an experienced fighter who brings a fluid offensive style to the ring. He can also very comfortable either striking or grappling with opponents but he does have a good amount of losses as well. Marlon Sandro has a much better win to loss ratio than his opponent but less experience as well. Sandro is a technically sound fighter who is good at what he does; he does take a lot of fights to decision though which is not always the safest way to end a fight.
Lightweight Semifinal Matches
Dave Jansen is a very skilled grappling fighter who has a wrestling style. His professional record of 17-2-0 with ten wins by submission will serve to back up that claim. His fight versus Tommy Truex showed he is also ready to take the fight to the opponent standing up as well. Ricardo Tirloni is a good match-up for Jansen with comparable skills and professional record, 15-2-0. His black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu means that this could turn into a very interesting grappling match. However Triloni can deffinately stand up with opponents being able to take punches and counter punch effectively. Here’s a video of Triloni in his quarterfinal fight of this tournament.
Marcin Held is a young fighter, only being 20 years old, with a professional record of 14-2-0. He is a slippery and dangerous submission artist as can be seen in the first video below. He holds a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and is possibly on track to become the youngest person in Poland to receive a black belt in this martial art. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the opponent Richard Clementi being 35 years old and having a record of 45-21-0. Clementi is an unpredictable fighter with a really crazy style, and he looks crazy doing it smiling and laughing at opponents sometimes. However his strength is in taking the opponent to the ground and working submissions. The second video below shows his quarterfinal bout in this tournament.
Who Will Win
If only I knew i could make some money this Friday night. The fights are sure to be interesting though and being a televised even be ready for the Ryan center to be one hell of an arena. If your in the area it would be a good idea to grab some tickets and head down to the fight on Friday night for a good show.
Rhody MMA 