It appears that the continuation of Bellator MMA holding Grand Prix tournaments will move forward.
It all started with the heavyweight tournament that saw Bellator light heavyweight champion Ryan Bader beat Fedor Emelianenko in the finals to win the vacant heavyweight strap.
Then, they announced that the welterweight tournament would begin back in September in San Jose, California in connection with the launch of the promotion’s new digital network partner DAZN.
It was rumored before this announcement that the Viacom-owned promotion was looking to capitalize on the depth of its welterweight division and thus, there will be a welterweight grand prix created.
Bellator MMA President Scott Coker spoke with MMA Fighting about the potential launch of a featherweight tournament. He hopes to hold a tournament each year with the likely timeline of the featherweight grand prix taking place in October.
“There’s a lot of dialogue about different weight classes,” Coker said. “We haven’t 100 percent said which division but I believe that come October we will probably roll out a new tournament in a different weight class. We’ve talked about the pros and cons of different weight classes but I think that the one that sounds the most attractive to me is the featherweight division.
“You have the Pitbulls [Patricio Freire] and you have the A.J. McKees, [James] Gallagher could come up, Darrion Caldwell could come up, and [Aaron] Pico is in that weight class, [Henry] Corrales, [Emmanuel] Sanchez – we just have so many great fighters in that weight class that I think it makes sense.”
