Brandon Girtz

Bellator 190: Carvalho vs. Sakara took place on December 9, 2017 at the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence, Italy. The event aired on Spike TV. A Middleweight world title fight match pitting Rafael Carvalho against Alessio Sakara will served as the main event of Bellator 190. Occurring also on this card is Bellator Kickboxing 8 headlined by Lightweight title bout pitting Giorgio Petrosyan against Youdwicha.

Bellator keeps up its busy end-of-year schedule by going head-to-head with the UFC today for Bellator 165, and the promotion just might have a chance to pull in some decent ratings with these fights, especially the one at the top of the card. In the main event, Michael Chandler, in his second stint as Bellator lightweight champion, puts the title he won in June on the line against former UFC lightweight titleholder Benson Henderson. In the co-main event, Michael Page, one of the most electrifying fighters on the Bellator roster, faces Fernando Gonzalez in a fight that was booked and scratched on two previous occasions. The fight card also features the professional debuts of Keri Anne Taylor-Melendez and “Baby Slice,” Kevin Ferguson Jr. Bellator 165 takes place at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. Prelims stream on MMAjunkie before the Spike-televised main card.

Bellator 174: Coenen vs. Budd was held on March 3, 2017 at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The event aired live in prime time on Spike TV. The main event featured Marloes Coenen versus Julia Budd for the inaugural Bellator women's featherweight title.[6] This was the first time a woman's bout has headlined a Bellator card. Kendall Grove was originally scheduled to face Chris Honeycutt at this event. However, Honeycutt was removed from the bout on February 28 and replaced by three-time UFC veteran and Bellator newcomer Mike Rhodes. Rhodes then failed to make weight and the fight was cancelled. Joe Taimanglo was scheduled to face Steve Garcia on this card. However, the fight was removed from the card after Taimanglo missed weight.