Bellator’s first ever summer series kicked off last night with the opening round of their latest Featherweight tournament. The biggest name in this season’s bracket is Pat Curran who won a previous Lightweight tournament and was the man who most recently challenged Eddie Alvarez for the Bellator title. While he was clearly outmatched there he looked stellar against Luis Palomino, who he defeated quickly using a Peruvian necktie in the opening round. The fight was Curran’s from the beginning as he struck his opponent to the ground in the opening moments and then used his submission game to end the fight at the 3:49 mark.
Also very impressive last night was Nazareno Malegarie who rebounded nicely from his first career loss to Daniel Straus last season. It took him two plus rounds to dispose of Jacob Devree via guillotine choke but he was dominant throughout. That ending had nothing on the one produced by Ronnie Mann in the first televised fight as he scored a vicious KO victory over Adam Schindler in the very first round. The match was called off as Malegarie ruthlessly pounded Schindler with hammerfists and clearly left him unconscious before the referee stepped in.
The final opening round fight saw Genair da Silva and Marlon Sandro battle all the way to the scorecards. Despite the fact that Sandro was in control for most of the fight and should have been awarded all three rounds he only won via split decision as one judge went with Silva by a score of 29-28.
After the show was over Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney confirmed that the next round would be comprised of Sandro vs. Malegarie and Curran vs. Mann and that those fights would take place at Bellator 47 on July 23. That card will also have a featherweight title bout between Joe Warren and Patricio Pitbull.
