The one fight we know for sure is being made based on the results of last night’s Bellator Dynamite card now has an approximate date. Liam McGeary will be defending the Bellator Light Heavyweight Championship against tournament winner and former UFC fighter Phil Davis in the first quarter of next year. MMA Junkie quoted Bellator President Scott Coker as saying that “I think that’s probably a fight we’ll promote sometime in the first quarter of next year, and I think it’s going to be a great matchup. It’s going to be a good battle.”
The fight was inevitable coming out of last night’s card, where both men scored first round finishes…though Davis got two of them on the way to winning Bellator’s one night light heavyweight tournament. His knockout win over Francis Carmont was actually the first of his career, and his first win via strikes since his third pro fight in 2009.
McGeary score a huge win himself, retaining his title by submitting Tito Ortiz with an inverted triangle choke. While McGeary was the favorite going in and such a result was expected, it’s more impressive than it sounds on the surface. Ortiz hadn’t submitted since his September 1999 loss to Frank Shamrock, where he tapped to strikes, and hadn’t tapped to an actual submission hold since the first night of his professional career. That was all the way back on on May 30th, 1997, where he made his pro debut with a TKO win over Wes A;britton in a UFC tournament before advancing to fac Guy Mezger, who defeated him with a guillotine choke.
