Chandler-Rickels bout highlights Summer Series finale
By BOB EMANUEL JR. | Scripps Howard News Service
Bellator MMA concludes its limited Summer Series with a mega event July 31 that features a pair of championship fights and a pair of tournament finales.
The most anticipated of the four bouts is the main event, in which Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler will defend his title against Season 8 tournament winner David Rickels.
Chandler (11-0) made his Bellator debut in 2010. The next year, he entered the lightweight tournament and defeated Patricky Freire in the tournament finale to secure a bout with champion Eddie Alvarez. Chandler won the title later that year in one of the best fights of 2011 to cement himself as a star. He has since defeated Akihiro Gono and Rick Hawn.
“He’s definitely top of the line,” Rickels said. “That’s the caliber of fighter I expect to be fighting in this championship round.”
Rickels (14-1) dropped from welterweight to lightweight for the tournament and had instant success. Rickels, 24, earned decision victories in the first two rounds of the tournament earlier this year, and won the finale with a second-round TKO of Saad Awad.
Rickels said he believes conditioning, will be the key to the championship.
“I think weathering the storm right off the bat and being able to fight five rounds is the most important thing,” he said. “If I fade in the fight, it’s going to be a bad night for me. If he fades in the fight, it’s going to be a bad night for him.”
Chandler’s rapid ascension was catapulted by his victory against Alvarez, and Rickels believes his transition from a fighter known only to hardcore MMA fans to a household name, likewise is just a victory away.
“A victory of this magnitude would propel me the same way it did him,” Rickels said, “especially if I did it in dominant fashion.”
Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren (11-0) will defend his title against fellow undefeated fighter Andrey Koreschkov (13-0) in the co-main event. The four combatants in the championship fights are a combined 39-1.
The finales match light heavyweights Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal vs. Jacob Noe and heavyweights Ryan Martinez vs. Vitaly Minakov.
