Bellator Summer Series wraps up Friday with finals of two tournaments

Luis Nogueira on right

Bellator’s 2012 Summer Series wraps up August 24th with BFC 73 at Harrah’s Tunica Hotel and Casino in Tunica, MS.  Originally Pat Curran was to headline in the first defense of his featherweight title however just ten days ago it was announced Curran suffered an injury in training, now the card is headlined by the finals of the season 6 bantamweight tournament and the finals of the summer series light heavyweight tournament. 

Travis Wiuff on topTravis Wiuff may not be the most exciting fighter but he is definitely one of the most effective.  Over the past three years Wiuff lost once while winning twelve times (plus one “no contest”), the last four being in Bellator.  In the summer series tournament Wiuff KO’d Chris Davis and picked up a unanimous decision over Tim Carpenter while his win over current champion Christian M’Pumbu in a non-title fight definitely give the UFC vet the odds to win. Attila Vegh Training at ATT Vegh on the other hand may just be the fighter to stop Wiuff as he has seven wins in a row including Zelg Galesic and Emanuel Newton in this tournament.  Vegh may not be able to keep Wiuff from taking him down but look for him to be one of Wiuff’s toughest opponents on the ground at least in Bellator. 

Looking at Marcos Galvao’s record is a little misleading as his last seven fights have gone the distance but they were far from boring.  Marcos Galvao on topGalvao’s loss to Alexis Vila at BFC 55 was so close he was awarded his win bonus anyway while his unanimous decision wins over Ed West and Travis Marx in the quarterfinals and semifinals of the season 6 tournament were much less in doubt.  Nogueira lost to West in the quarterfinals of season 5 then followed up with wins over Zak Laird, Alexis Vila, and Hiroshi Nakamura bringing him to 14-2.  Look for this one to be mostly a striking war with spurts of relatively even ground work. 

Cosmo AlexandreOn the undercard make sure to catch Cosmo Alexandre’s fight against Harry Johnson.  Alexander in MMA is only 2-1 with wins over Avery McPhatter and Lowrant-T Nelson but he is highly touted for his kickboxing career.  Johnson is 6-7 coming off a win over Nate Jolly. 

Undercard:

FW: Jay Black vs.Brian Hall
HW: Brian Albin vs.Jacob Noe
WW: Andy Uhrich vs.Joe William
HW: Maurice Jackson vs.Chris Miller
WW: Kelvin Tiller vs.Amaechi Oselukwue
MW: Cosmo Alexandre vs.Harry Johnson
LW: Chris Coggins vs.Zach Underwood

Main card:

LHW: Mike Mucitelli vs.Matt Van Buren
HW: Ryan Martinez vs.Mike Wessel
LHW tournament finals: Travis Wiuff vs.Attila Vegh
Season 6 BW tournament finals: Marcos Galvao vs.Luis Nogueira