Last night, Bellator 117 came to us from Council Bluffs, Iowa with an event headlined by Douglas Lima‘s sound defeat of Rick Hawn to capture the vacant Bellator Welterweight title. Though Hawn had a lot of steam going into the fight, it was the bigger, longer Brazilian Lima who raised his game another level and looked very solid in finishing in the 2nd round. The title was famously vacated by Ben Askren, who had defeated both men, but his match between Lima and Hawn was a solid one on paper and one that did not deteriorate into a Askren-like hug fest as both men looked to bang it out in the fight.
It was Lima who established himself early, with good movement he was able to work punches and kicks while Hawn was taking shots and not getting off any of his own. Lima dropped Hawn twice with leg kicks, and he showed good patience and didn’t go crazy throwing punches while Hawn was hurt but still defending. Overall it was a good outing for Lima, who now awaits Bellator’s season 10 tournament winner. That tourney is in it’s semi-finals and the current favorite to win it all is Andrey Koreshkov, who is a previous winner of a tourney and another Askren victim.
As for Hawn, he will likely have to endure the season 11 tourney again, if he hasn’t had enough of the sport of MMA. A weight class question exists with Hawn, as he has now failed in title shots at Lightweight and Welterweight. He is a good asset in either division for Bellator, but thinking off the cuff, it would be interesting to see him against Steve Carl or Josh Burkman, both of whom are on the World Series of Fighting roster at this time.
The potential Koreshkov versus Lima matxh is something to look forward to, and that will be a very hard match for the bookies to make a line on.
