Bellator 101 Features Season 9 Lightweight Quarterfinal
Bellator 101 at the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon, on September 27th will be the kick off to the season 9 Lightweight tournament with the quarterfinals taking place. The 4 match-ups are Marcus “Irish Hand grenade” Davis (22-9-0-1nc) vs. Alexander “Tiger” Sarnavskiy (23-1), John “The Natural” Alessio (34-16) vs. Will “Ill Will” Brooks (9-1), Saad Awad (14-5) vs. Martin “.50 CAL” Stapleton (12-1), and Rich “No Love” Clementi (45-22-1) vs. Rob “C4” Sinclair (12-2).
Marcus Davis of Team Sityodtong, after a Bellator debut no contest with Waachiim Spiritwolf; bounced back to win a unanimous decision over Darrius Heyliger. Since a split decision loss to Rich Clementi, Alexander Sarnavsky has won 3 consecutive bouts over Tony Hervey, Tiago Michel, and Atchin Chaoshen ne.
John Alessio is coming off a no contest with Dave Mazany, in a bout that saw Alessio poked in the eye and unable to continue the bout. Before that Alessio had lost back to back bout while in the UFC to Mark Bocek and Shane Roller, both by decision. Will Brooks last fought at Bellator 91, losing to Saad Awad by KO. Before the season 9 tournament begins Brooks will is scheduled to be in action at Bellator 97 against Chris Leyva.
Saad Awad is coming off of seeing his 6 fight winning streak ended by a TKO loss Dave Rickles. Awad may have been out or may have just been slow to get up; but the fight was stopped in a strange way. Martin Stapleton has won 8 fights in a row, most recently earning a unanimous decision over Tommy Maguire.
After a loss to Marcin Held that ended a 3 fight winning streak, Rich Clementi retired; after some time and treatment the retirement is over. Rob Sinclair has won 5 consecutive bouts including most recently earning a split decision win over Andre Winner.
A non tournament Lightweight bout pitting Ricardo Tirloni (15-4) vs. Marin Held (15-3) has also been announced for Bellator 101. Tirloni will be looking to get back in the win column after consecutive losses to Dave Jansen and Will Brooks. Held is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Dave Jansen in the season 7 tournament finals; the loss ended a 5 fight winning streak.