Clementi faces Held, Tirloni gets Jansen in LW tournament semifinals following BFC 77

For the most part the Russian fighters have been faring well at Bellator, that is until all three Russians in the season 7 lightweight tournament took losses home to two American fighters and one from Poland, the fourth fight being two Brazilians.  BFC 77 took place October 19th at the Sovereign Center in Reading, PA with an undercard webstreamed on Spike.com and a main card televised on MTV2.

Rick Clementi

UFC vet Rich Clementi came away victorious but Alexander Sarnavskiy didn’t give up his undefeated status without a fight.  Sarnavskiy was in some people’s opinion a favorite to win going into this bout with a 20-0 record while Clementi at 44-21-1 at the time was looked at as a fighter no longer at the UFC level.  Clementi however had other ideas as he used his experience against a higher level of opponents to out-maneuver Sarnavskiy.  Much of the first round saw Clementi latched on Sarnavskiy’s back standing while round 2 Clementi again took the Russian’s back on the ground.  Round 3 Sarnavskiy took over with scoring hovering over a downed Clementi but it was too little too late, the judges split on seeing it for Clementi.

Marcin Held

In the semifinals November 16th Clementi faces Marcin Held who this night defeated Murad Machaev.  Machaev stayed out of Held’s infamous leg locks while scoring sporadically with punches but Held scored more strikes to earn a unanimous decision.

Ricardo Trilomni

The other LW tournament semifinal at BFC 81 will be Ricardo Tirloni vs. Dave Jansen.  Tirloni not only defeated Rene Nazare, he did so by submission with a second round brabo choke.  WEC vet Jansen managed to find a round three guillotine choke but rounds 1 & 2 his opponent Magomed Saadulaev impressed the crowd with his control of transitions and positions, always seeming to have a limb in the right place at the right time to nullify Jansen’s escape attempts.

Dave Jansen

Bellator 81 takes place November 16th at the Ryan Center in Rhode Island.  So far the semifinals are confirmed but the rest of the card has yet to be revealed.

BFC 77 results:

Brett Martinez def. Eric Albright 3:28 R2 by guillotine choke
Duane Bastress def. Ariel Sepulveda by split decision
Cosmo Alexander def. Mike Bannon 5:00 R21 by TKO
Darrell Horcher def. E.J. Brooks 0:21 R1 by KO
Lew Polley def. Carmelo Marrero by unanimous decision
LW tournament: Ricardo Tirloni def. Rene Nazare 1:14 R2 by brabo choke
LW tournament: Marcin Held def. Murad Machaev by unanimous decision
LW tournament: Dave Jansen def. Magomed Saadulaev 0:41 R3 by guillotine choke
LW tournament: Rich Clementi def. Alexander Sarnavskiy by split decision
Matthew Lozano def. Dave Morgan 2:28 R2 by inverted triangle choke