An in-cage altercation between the Bellator season six middleweight tournament finalists at Bellator 66 last week has resulted in the Ohio State Athletic Commission levying disciplinary action against one of the fighters.
Maiquel Falcao and Andreas Spang made it through the field of middleweight tournament competitors to secure a match up against one another in the finals. At last Friday’s Bellator 66 event, where both men advanced in the tourney, the two were brought into the cage for a face off. Falcao’s mean mug prompted the shove-happy Spang to push the Brazilian, leading to a mini-altercation in the cage.
Speaking with MMAJunkie, OSAC executive director Bernie Profato revealed that Spang has been fined twenty percent of his fight purse for instigating the altercation. Having taken home $30,000 ($15,000 to show up and another $15,000 to win) that night for his win over Brian Rogers, Spang was fined a total of $6,000.
Profato intended to suspend Spang for up to six months, but Bellator officials asked for a different course of action since it would prevent Spang from competing against Falcao in the finals. Falcao received no punishment, as it was deemed he was only acting in self defense.
Bellator 66 went down at the I-X Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Spang and Falcao have not been assigned a date yet for their middleweight tournament final.
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Ah come on, no harm no foul! Falcao actually nudged him.by getting in his face. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve been recording these Fri night fights, which have actually.been surprisingly pretty good, and falcao never should’ve been there anyway. That Russian dude he fought first is so nasty and I hope to see him.in the big show soon.
I agree, to me Falcao stuck his face in there so he instigated it. He should have been punished a little bit as well, say $2K.
i don’t like ghettoness…..
Props to Falcao for holding back on that punch, surprising considering his past inside the cage…..Would like to see him back in the UFC one day
@Doug
“Props to Falcao for holding back on that punch” and instead going for the knee right? LOL :)
Spang, what a dumba$$. What you can’t contain yourself for a 5 second stare off? You’ve done it your whole career at the weigh ins! Now you’re down 6k…
What I find most interesting is that the OSAC switched their punishment to accomodate bellator’s tourney. What?? How many times have we seen that? zero? I mean, sure it’s great that they did that for bellator but other commission’s seem to be out to make examples out of fighters. This was a minor thing IMO though.
For an incident like that and in a tournament format, it’s not unheard of. It’s always tough in situations like this and Bellator likely explained that this was partly their fault since they intentionally bring in the other finalist for a staredown.
If Spang had not also shoved Rogers the day before during the weigh-ins his fine would have likely been less as well.
If you remember, Fedor received his first loss is due to one of these type decisions. Even though he actually won the bout due to a DQ, the fact that he could not advance led them to change it to a loss so Kohsaka could advance. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a tournament.