Bellator 170 comes to us this Saturday night (Jan. 21) from The Forum in Inglewood, California. Bellator is rolling out the final pre-fight conference before the event takes place. The conference will be held today (Jan. 19) and it’ll begin at 3 p.m. ET.
The main event of Bellator 170 will feature a grudge match between from Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight title holder Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen. “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” has claimed this will be his final fight.
Welterweights will collide in the co-main event. Former middleweight title challenger Brennan Ward will go to war with former UFC, Strikeforce, EliteXC, and BAMMA veteran Paul Daley. Ward has said he and “Semtex” are one of the few “old-school guys” in mixed martial arts (MMA). If the bout lives up to the hype, we could be looking at an early “Fight of the Year” candidate.
Middleweight action will also be showcased on the main card. Knockout artist Hisaki Kato will welcome Ralek Gracie back to MMA competition. Gracie’s last MMA fight was in May 2010. Kato doesn’t have any particular feeling when it comes to fighting someone from the Gracie family. It should go without saying, but many believe this bout will end in either a knockout or submission.
Bellator 170’s main card has a featherweight contest as well. The two 145-pounders are Georgi Karakhanyan and Emmanuel Sanchez. Karakhanyan is a seasoned veteran who has had 33 professional MMA bouts. Sanchez will do battle for the 17th time in his career. He has won three of his last four bouts and all of them have resulted in a split decision.
Lightweights Derek Campos and Derek Anderson are expected to get the main card started. After losing three of his last four bouts, Campos stunned Melvin Guillard with a second round knockout. He followed that up with a unanimous decision over Djamil Chan. Anderson will also be looking to extend his winning streak to three. He defeated Patricky Freire and Saad Awad in his last two outings.
The main card of Bellator 170 will air at 9 p.m. ET on Spike.
