Written by Jason Gittens Thursday, 28 February 2013 22:19
Tonight Bellator 91 emanated from Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico where the nights main card featured 3 fights, 2 lightweight tournament semifinal bouts and a 5 round light heavyweight title bout as the main event.
Preliminary Card:
The preliminary card featured absolutely no decisions tonight, with the most notable performances coming from Ed West vs. Josh Montoya and the only WMMA bout of the evening between Holly Holm and Katie Merrill. Ed West and Josh Montoya put together a fun fight for 1.5 rounds, displaying some crisp boxing and a ton of kicks by West, that was the difference tonight where West eventually snapped off a crisp headkick KO midway through the second round. Holy Holm who is a highly decorated and successful boxer took on Katie Merrill who was a little over matched by a bigger faster stronger fighter in Holm who showed a good all around game, not trying to box her way through the fight but keeping Merrill guessing with a balanced attack. Holm is definitely is one to watch, she's, big, tough and has talent.
Jason Fischer vs. David Rickels
David Rickels said he would "big brother" Jason Fischer tonight in the pre fight interviews, and he did just that, completely dominating Fischer for 3 full rounds and beating Fischer for the second time in his career. Rickels now moves on to the Lightweight Final.
Saad Awad vs. Will Brooks
In this very quick fight Awad threw some heavy leather that caught the highly touted Brooks in the first few seconds of the 1st round, staggering and dropping Brooks, Awad then hit the apparently very resilient Brooks with a ton of hammer fists as Brooks tried in vain to take Awad down, referee Jason Herzog gave Brooks a lot of time to recover but there was just no way he was going to, stopping the fight 43 seconds into the 1st round. Awad now meets Rickels in the lightweight tournament final.
Christian M'Pumbu vs. Attila Vegh
This fight was pretty much a bust, what most expected to be a slugfest turned out to be a slow tentatively fought fight by the champion M'Pumbu who seemed to be giving way too much respect to Vegh's power, M'Pumbu threw very few punches, and wasn't willing to take a punch tonight, spending the most of the 5 rounds pawing at Vegh's lead hand and maybe throwing a punch here and there but never a combination. Vegh was the aggressor for most of the fight walking down M'Pumbu keeping him on the defensive. After a night of so many finishes, the crowd had no patience for this slow and very boring fight, booing heavily for almost 4 full rounds. Vegh's cardio was a lot better than M'Pumbu's as the ex-champ was clearly tired to start the 4th round. Overall M'Pumbu seemed too careful , almost too worried about getting KO'd tonight, and he fought like it. Vegh gets crowned as the new Bellator light heavyweight champion and M'Pumbu gets a free pass into the next light heavyweight tournament to try to win it back.
Here's the full results summary for Bellator 91
MAIN CARD
- Attila Vegh def. Christian M'Pumbu via unanimous decision (48-47, 49-46, 50-45)
- Vegh wins light heavyweight title - Saad Awad def. Will Brooks via KO (strikes) - R1, 0:43
- lightweight tournament semifinals - David Rickels def. Jason Fischer via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
- lightweight tournament semifinals
PRELIMINARY CARD (Streamed Live on Spike.com)
- Holly Holm def. Katie Merrill via TKO (strikes) - R2, 3:02
- Blas Avena def. Lenny Lovato Jr. via TKO (strikes) - R1, 1:41
- Andres Quintana def. Russell Wilson via TKO (strikes) - R3, 0:32
- Ed West def. Josh Montoya via KO (head kick) - R2, 2:51
- Adrian Cruz def. Nick Gonzalez via submission (scarf hold armlock) - R2, 3:00
- Josh Appelt def. Josh Lanier via TKO (strikes) - R2, 0:16
- Brennan Ward def. Yair Moguel via submission (rear-naked choke) - R1, 0:57
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