Bellator MMA has announced that Bellator 180 will be televised on Spike TV. The recently announced Pay Per View, will follow follow it, with that card being named “Bellator NYC”.
The “Bellator NYC” portion of the card has added undefeated Brent Primus challenging “Iron” Michael Chandler for the Bellator Lightweight title. Primus won his first 4 fight all by rear naked choke, then score his first TKO, and has won his last 2 by split decision. The selection of Primus for this fight is a bit of a head scratch-er, as by the time he enters the cage in June, he’ll been out of action for 16 months. Primus pulled out of his last scheduled fight, with fellow undefeated prospect Adam Piccolotti, which was set for Bellator 172, with an undisclosed injury. Chandler the defending champion is on a 4 fight win streak, that includes knock outs of David Rickles and Patricky Freire, and is coming off a split decision win over Benson Henderson.
The other announced title fight will see newly signed free agent Lorenz “The Monsoon” Larkin challenging Douglas “The Phenom” Lima for the Bellator Welterweight title. Larkin comes to Bellator after a 5-5 run in the UFC, but left the UFC as a top 10 ranked contender. Larkin turned his career around in the octagon when deciding to drop to 170 and going 4-1, winning his last 2 fights over Jorge Masvidal (split decision) and Neil Magny (TKO); both are ranked in the top 6 of the UFC’s welterweight contenders rankings. Lima is the 2-time Bellator Welterweight champion, who took a unanimous decision from Paul Daley in July of 2016 and then won the title back with a 3rd round Knock out of Andrey Koreshkov, in November.
