The May 15th Bellator 137 card scheduled for the Pechanga Resort and Casino has inked a main event, as middleweight champ Brandon Halsey makes his first title defense against UFC veteran Kendall Grove. The match will air on Spike TV, and figures to have Halsey installed as the favorite when the line gets released at the books.
Halsey is only 8-0 but he captured the Bellator middleweight title in September with a 35-second dismantling of long-time champion Alexander Shlemenko. Though Shlemenko had a wide experience advantage over Halsey, Halsey’s powerful wrestling background is a tailor-made foil to Shlemenko, who was exposed for a second fight in a row as having no ground game. Halsey does not figure to have that advantage against Grove, whose also very experienced but is also much more competent on thr ground than Shlemenko. Grove is tall at 6 ft. 6 in. and that makes him dangerous as a striker to Halsey, whose base is still wrestling, but Grove also has 10 submission wins in his 21-win MMA career, so Halsey will have to stay safe on the mat as well.
Grove won his last outing for Bellator, defeating Christiam M’Pumbu with a rear naked choke in the second round to bring his Bellator record to (2-1). He would not be getting a title shot in a group with a real talent pool, but he qualifies as a “credible” opponent for Halsey, who is going to have a major strength and overall athleticism advantage over Grove.
The winner of the bout will almost certainly be looking at a rematch with Shlemenko. Halsey is a young, fresh face that Bellator did well putting back in the ring as quickly as possible. Should he get by Grove as he is expected to do, the date with Shlemenko will give Bellator something they can market around. For his part, Shlemenko came out and defeated Melvin Manhoef in a superfight for Bellator, and he notched another win for a different promotion in his native Russia, but Bellator was wise in this case, as Grove injects a little variety, and Shlemenko vs Halsey 2 does not seem intriguing at all.
