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Bellator 99 Recap: Pitbull Smashes Nunes, Matyushenko vs. Alexander Was Pretty Much a Waste of Time

ByIan Shutts

It would be a shame if we only remembered last night’s Bellator 99 as the first night of the promotion’s transformation into The UFC Senior Circuit, but honestly, there wasn’t much to write about on the main card of last night’s fights. So let’s start off on a positive note and talk about the main event.

In the main event of the evening, Bellator’s homegrown prospect Patricio Pitbull (Patricio Freire if you want to get technical) make very short work of Diego Nunes. The usually aggressive Pitbull was cautious during the bout, opting to wait for Nunes to lunge at him. The inevitable happened just over seventy seconds into their fight, and Pitbull made “The Gun” pay dearly for doing so. Pitbull not only improves to 19-2 in his professional MMA career, but now he also holds a victory over a guy that the casual MMA fan may have actually heard of – something that leads me to believe that Bellator’s “Sign Ex-UFC Fighters Who Won’t Challenge for the Title” business model may not be as foolish as most of us are making it out to be.

In fact, I’d be willing to write an Unsupportable Opinion piece based around that last sentence…if it weren’t for the gigantic waste of time that was the clash between Vladimir Matyushenko and Houston Alexander. Believe it or not, the fight between the forty-something ex-UFC gatekeepers was worse than you were expecting it to be. Probably not “Worst Fight of the Year” at this year’s Potato Awards bad, but it’ll certainly be included in the discussion. View at your own risk after the jump.

Also of note, Blagoy Ivanov returned to action on the preliminary card last night. Ivanov, who was the victim of an assault that nearly killed him last February, only needed seventy-seven seconds to choke out Manny Lara during their bout. Ivanov had the potential to make an impact on Bellator’s heavyweight division, and judging by his performance last night, hasn’t lost a step despite spending so much time away from the sport.

Full Results

Main Card

  • Patricio Freire def. Diego Nunes via KO (punches), 1.19 of Round One
  • Fabricio Guerreiro def. Des Green via unanimous decision
  • Vladimir Matyushenko def. Houston Alexander via unanimous decision
  • Justin Wilcox def. Akop Stepanyan via submission (rear-naked choke), 2.20 of Round Two
  • Joe Taimanglo def. Andrew Fisher via unanimous decision

Preliminary Card

  • Virgil Zwicker def. Nick Moghaddam via TKO (punches)
  • Blagoi Ivanov def. Manny Lara via submission (guillotine), 1:17 of Round One
  • Goiti Yamauchi def. Musa Toliver via submission (rear-naked choke), 1.01 of Round One
  • Gavin Sterritt def. Andy Murad via split decision
  • Hector Ramirez def. Savo Kosic via unanimous decision