Bellator 96 slated for June 19 with Chandler-Jansen title fight

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/05/bellator-96-slated-for-june-19-with-chandler-jansen-title-fight-king-mo

Quote :

Bellator will kick off its summer events schedule on Wednesday, June 19 with Bellator 96, which features a title fight and the start of a four-man light-heavyweight tournament.

The event takes place at WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla., and the night's main card airs on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com.

In the headliner, undefeated Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler (11-0 MMA, 8-0 BFC), who's currently ranked No. 3 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com MMA lightweight rankings, meets recent tournament winner Dave Jansen (19-2 MMA, 6-0 BFC), a former WEC fighter who's won six straight fights, all under the Bellator banner.

In the opening round of the 205-pound tournament, former Strikeforce champion Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal (9-2 MMA, 1-1 BFC) looks to rebound from an upset loss to Emanuel Newton in a previous tournament when he meets Seth Petruzelli (14-7 MMA, 1-1 BFC), who was bounced from a tourney by Jacob Noe in his most recent outing.

On the other side of the bracket, big-show vet and former Strikeforce champ Renato "Babalu" Sobral (37-10 MMA, 0-1 BFC), whose previous Bellator tourney run ended with a vicious KO loss to Mikhail Zayats, meets Jacob Noe (11-2 MMA, 2-1 BFC), whose nine-fight win streak also came to an end with a tourney defeat to Zayats.

Bellator 96's main card kicks off with a welterweight bout between War Machine (12-4 MMA, 0-0 BFC), who returns from a 17-month layoff to legal and injury issues, to fight Blas Avena (8-6 MMA, 1-0 BFC), a WEC vet who recently made his Bellator debut and knocked out Lenny Lovato.

Bellator 96's preliminary-card bouts will be announced in the coming weeks.

The latest Bellator 96 card now includes:

MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 10 p.m. ET)

Champ Michael Chandler vs. Dave Jansen - for lightweight title
Muhammed Lawal vs. Seth Petruzelli - light-heavyweight tournament opening round
Jacob Noe vs. Renato Sobral - light-heavyweight tournament opening round
Blas Avena vs. War Machine

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/05/bellator-96-main-card-adds-heavyweight-tourney-expands-to-three-hours

Quote :

The event, Bellator 96, takes place June 19 at WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla. The three-hour main card airs on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com.

The main card now boasts six fights with the addition of the tourney's opening round. The heavyweight matchups include Vinicius Queiroz (6-3 MMA, 1-1 BFC) vs. Rich Hale (21-5 MMA, 6-2 BFC) and Vitaly Minakov (10-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) vs. Ron Sparks (8-1 MMA, 3-1 BFC).

The tourney's final will take place later this summer.

MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 7 p.m. ET)

Michael Chandler vs. Dave Jansen - for lightweight title
Muhammed Lawal vs. Seth Petruzelli - light-heavyweight tournament opening round
Jacob Noe vs. Renato Sobral - light-heavyweight tournament opening round
Rich Hale vs. Vinicius Queiroz - heavyweight-tournament opening round
Vitaly Minakov vs. Ron Sparks - heavyweight-tournament opening round
Blas Avena vs. War Machine

PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 6 p.m. ET)

Mikey Brown vs. Brandon Halsey
Steven Artoff vs. Justin McNally
Damon Jackson vs. Keith Miner
Mike Maldonado vs. Jason Sampson
Brandon Girtz vs. TBA
Keith Berry vs. Cortez Coleman

Damn, what ever happened to Blagoi Ivanov? That dude looked like he had a future.

Bellator cut him last year. He woke up form his 3 month coma. In January he announced he was getting back in the gym. I think he has a match scheduled in September.

http://www.fightliveshare.com/fight-talk/news/blagoi-ivanov-from-brink-of-death-to-mma-return/

GDPofDRC wrote:

Damn, what ever happened to Blagoi Ivanov? That dude looked like he had a future.

Bellator cut him last year. He woke up form his 3 month coma. In January he announced he was getting back in the gym. I think he has a match scheduled in September.

http://www.fightliveshare.com/fight-talk/news/blagoi-ivanov-from-brink-of-death-to-mma-return/

Damn that's crazy. How about the Ninja Place favorite Ron Sparks?

Ha ha ha
Ho ho ho
And a couple of tra la las
That's how we laugh the day away
In the merry old land of ron sparks

Ivanov had made an agreement with WSOF...but Bellator changed their minds. I don't know if they re-signed him but they blocked his signing to WSOF.

They probably didnt think he was ever coming back. He was by far the best HW they had outside of Konrad.