Bellator’s first event of 2017 will take place on Jan. 21. Bellator 170 will be held inside The Forum in Inglewood, California. The main event will showcase a light heavyweight grudge match between Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz.
Ortiz says it’ll be his final mixed martial arts (MMA) bout.
Spike will be airing “Countdown to Tito Ortiz vs Chael Sonnen” tomorrow night (Jan. 13) at 11:15 p.m. ET or immediately following Premier Championship Boxing. The official YouTube channel of Bellator rolled out a quick preview of the countdown show.
Sonnen will step foot inside the Bellator cage for the first time. The Team Quest fighter has gone 1-3 in his last four bouts and hasn’t competed in over three years. He’ll look to make his MMA return a successful one.
“The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” has already competed under the Bellator banner three times. He is 2-1 with the promotion. He defeated Stephan Bonnar by split decision in his Bealltor debut. He then pulled off an upset by submitting Alexander Shlemenko, who was the middleweight champion at that time.
In his last bout, Ortiz was granted a light heavyweight title opportunity against Liam McGeary. Ortiz was trapped in an inverted triangle choke and was forced to tap.
The co-main event will be contested in the welterweight division. Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Strikeforce veteran Paul Daley will look to rebound from his loss to Douglas Lima last July. His opponent will be former middleweight title challenger Brennan Ward.
Ward suffered a surprising 30-second submission loss to Evangelista Santos at Bellator 153. Close to seven months later, he knocked out Saad Awad in the first round.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Ralek Gracie will compete in an MMA bout for the first time in over six years to face knockout artist Hisaki Kato.
The main card for Bellator 170 will air live at 9 p.m. ET.
