The idea of fighting a teammate in mixed martial arts is a conversation that few people are willing to have. We’ve seen some teammates square off in the cage to produce subpar fights and others outright refuse to do it. However, the main event of Bellator 89 featured a fight between two Nova Uniao standouts clashing over the company’s bantamweight title.
Eduardo Dantas was defending his title against what some would call more than a friend in Marcos Galvao. The two Brazilian teammates came to blows over the Bellator 135 title and it would be “Du Du” that would come away with the victory.
The first round started out slow as both competitors gauged each other around the cage. Galvao was trying to load up on his shots while Dantas moved around and pestered him from range with a left jab. When the round ended it was very clear that the younger fighter was the faster of the two and would be able to land more precise shots from range.
The end came in the second round when Eduardo caught Marcos with an uppercut that sent his training partner to the mat. Followed up by hammer fists the referee was forced to call this fight at 3:03 in the second round.
The aftermath was something to see as Eduardo cried about what happened in the cage; expressing happiness through his translator but also talking about the sadness of having to fight someone who was like a brother to him.
With this victory, Dantas improved to 15-3 while Galvao is now 13-6-1.
In the co-main event of the evening, Bellator gave fight fans their first entry into the fight of the year category as Dan Cramer outlasted Brian Rogers in an exciting middleweight tilt.
Cramer pushed the action for much of the bout but Rogers was always willing to retaliate and take control when he could. Cramer’s lead right hand seemed to take away Rodger’s timing and kept him tentative in the striking category. Rogers would hit a lateral drop takedown multiple times throughout the fight, but Cramer always responded by getting back to his feet and scoring takedowns of his own.
Going into the third round the fight was close but Cramer was able to stave off the last effort attacks by Rogers to get the unanimous decision victory.
In another middleweight tournament fight, Brett Cooper overwhelmed Norman Paraisy from start to finish of their fight.
With a straight forward wrestling game Cooper controlled the first frame of the fight asserting himself over the French fighter. In the second round he landed an uppercut that dropped his opponent early and had him seriously hurt, but he was unable to finish him at that point. For the rest of the round and the fight Cooper did his work by taking Norman to the mat with slam after slam to earn 30-27 scores across the board.
Former World Extreme Cagefighting champion Doug Marshall blasted Andreas Spang with a right hook that made him nearly do a 360 before crashing to the ground in the first round of their middleweight tournament matchup. What made the knockout even more impressive is that as soon as the shot landed, Doug turned his back and walked off like he had just hit a homerun in the MLB. Andreas bounced back to consciousness when his head hit the mat, but Dan Miragliotta was already calling the bout off.
Sultan Aliev stayed undefeated when he earned a unanimous decision victory against Mikkel Parlo, who lost for the first time in his career. These two individuals meet in the first middleweight tournament matchup of the evening. Aliev was able to take two of the three rounds on every judge’s scorecard and now has the opportunity to advance to the final four in this season’s tournament.
Bellator 89 was another solid event in the company’s new partnership with Spike and the captivating main event which pitted two friends against each other was compelling to hardcore and mainstream fans alike.
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