Bellator has announced the complete fight card for Saturday’s Bellator 39 event, including a headlining title fight between lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and season two tournament winner Pat Curran.
The MTV2-televised main card also features former champ Lyman Good vs. Rick Hawn in a welterweight tournament semifinal, a lightweight tourney semifinal between Toby Imada and Patricky “Pitbull” Freire, and the Bellator debut of UFC vet Ben Saunders vs. Matt Lee.
“I need to live up to my own expectations. More than any fight in my career – in this fight with Pat Curran – I just want to completely dominate,” Alvarez said in a release. “It has nothing to do with Pat; it’s just what I feel like I have to do regardless of who I’m fighting, in order to earn my rank of number one in the world. I won’t be happy with anything less than complete and total domination.”
The complete Bellator 39 fight card includes:
MAIN CARD (MTV2)
- Champ Eddie Alvarez vs. Pat Curran
Bellator Lightweight Championship - Lyman Good vs. Rick Hawn (welterweight tourney semifinal)
- Toby Imada vs. Patricky “Pitbull” Freire (lightweight tourney semifinal)
- Ben Saunders vs. Matt Lee
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Matt Veach (12-3) vs. Rene Nazare (6-0)
- Greg Rebello (12-2) vs. Dan Cramer (5-2)
- Mike Winters (4-0) vs. Ryan Quinn (4-2)
- David Jansen (14-2) vs. Scott McAfee (10-2)
- John McLaughlin (3-0) vs. Blair Tugman (5-3)
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I know Bellator is considered by many “minor league”, but IMO this is a major league free-per-view event…
I agree..best Bellator card ever
Ya, bellator is both: getting some big name fighters; and producing some new prospect fighters. i agree with ya on that, minor league or not, putting on great fight/fighters for free is major leagur ta me!
i also wish eddie would jump his level of compatition up and fight guida, bj, frankie kind of ppl.
Recently Eddie Alvarez appeared on Inside MMA, and talked about his desire to fight 155ers recognized as the top of their weightclass.
Alvarez-Edgar I doubt we’d ever see, as both guys train together and have been friends for years.
Edgar previously commented that if he found himself in the same weightclass as Alvarez, he’d consider a drop to 145, but he’d also consider fighting Alvarez, which IMO is a great answer.
The problem here is that Eddie Alvarez has a pretty sweet deal with Bellator, and is essentially their posterboy right now.
Before Zuffa consumed Strikeforce, there was a very small chance of seeing Alvarez and Strikeforce 155 champion Gilbert Melendez throwdown.
In the Zuffa era thats only going to happen if they buy Bellator, which doesn’t read as insane as it would have before Zuffa bought Strikeforce.
Short-term Alvarez is staying where he is, and probably outclassing guys like Pat Curran.
I read about a week ago the blogoshperic idea that if Alvarez beats Curren, maybe he would consider some sort of catchweight fight with Ben Askren, but thats makes not much sense promotionally at this point IMO.
Longterm, who knows?
;-)
4 sure, go where the $$ is good. cant argue that at all. its jst a personal thing..i like watchin top level fighters fight other top level fighters. unfortunaly for eddie most of the top 155ers r zuffa.
I wouldn’t mind seeing him fight Melendez or Noons.
Depending on how much influence Zuffa has over Scott Coker, who allegedly is still running things, we MIGHT see Alverez loaned out to SF.
i dont remember what the outcome was for co-promoting with the *new* strikeforce. surly one of the mods do…
only deals in place before the aquisition will be completed and new ones are unlikely.
Rebney couldn’t get Coker to listen to him before Strikeforce was aquired by Zuffa. Even less likely now.
This is exactly why I think SF will exist for a while to come …. Coker runs the show and the way he does things is benificial to the ZUFFA brand . Lets face it , the UFC doesnt want H.Walker fighting on their cards per say but SF allows that to happen and the fans like it . So it is a way for the ZUFFA brand to cash in on a side of MMA that they cant do with the UFC . Same with Coker’s relationships with M-1 and DREAM … Dana cant get in the door with the japanese while Coker can so if ZUFFA lets him do his thing they get a hold in the market .There are many reasons to keep SF going on its own .