This past weekend Reno, Nevada hosted Bellator 115, an event headlined by the Heavyweight Title bout between newly minted titleholder Vitaly Minakov and UFC veteran Cheick Kongo.
The match itself revealed much in its five rounds. First, it showed that Minakov is a solid fighter, and one who has a gas tank that can go for 5 rounds. He weighed a solid 253 lbs for the bout, and he didn’t seem to have a problem with the physicality of Kongo. The judges all saw roughly the same thing, giving Minakov a comfortable win, with Kongo reasonably winning one round in the bout. The books had Minakov a solid favorite at about 2 to 1 (-220), and Minakov will likely be a favorite at the books in his next Bellator bout.
Minakov moves to 14-0 and at 29 years old, figures to be the Bellator champion for a while. He had a considerable amount of hype going into this match, and hat should increase. But is he all that?
Kongo looks like a million bucks, but in his late 30’s now, we have seen the best he has to offer. In this match, he looked slow, and when he had the advantage he was hesitant and did not throw strikes. To his credit, he was wobbled a few times, but he fought through it, which he has not done in the past.
But Minakov not being able to finish Kongo may set the bar for Minakov. Kongo came in at under 240 lbs, meaning Minakov was bigger by roughly 15 lbs, but he did not get a chance to finish off Kongo despite having him rocked several times.
Minakov awaits the winner of the season 10 heavyweight tournament, which is in the semi final stage and sees Mighty Mo (no he is not King Mo’s brother) take on former champion Alexander Volkov and Blagoi Ivanov facing off against Lavar Johnson. Mo figures to be the most dangerous to Minakov because of his size, as he moves down to make the 265 lb limit. It will be intersting to see if Minakov can handle a bigger opponent. Even the UFC’s mid tier of big Heavyweights could give him trouble. Guys such as Ben Rothwell (when his head is on straight) and Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ would be a huge challenge for Minakov. But he will be safe in Bellator for the forseeable future.
