Muhammed Lawal keeps finding success in the heavyweight division.
The typically light heavyweight fighter defeated Satoshi Ishii in a heavyweight contest in the main event of Bellator 169, which took place on Friday at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
It was a fight that had very little action from both fighters. Ishii was hesitant and stayed on the outside occasionally throwing punches that wouldn’t really do anything significant. ‘King Mo’ pressed forward and, although a little bit more active than Ishii, there wasn’t much action from the former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, either. A couple of takedowns here and there in rounds two and three, plus his cage control, were able to get ‘King Mo’ a clean unanimous decision victory.
With this victory, ‘King Mo’ bounced back from his light heavyweight loss to Phil Davis back in May. ‘King Mo’ is now 9-0 as a heavyweight, and improved his overall professional record to 20-5 with one no contest.
After the fight, Bellator announced via a press release that ‘King Mo’ will continue to compete against heavyweights, as he’s now a part of the Rizin FF openweight grand prix, taking the vacant slot left by an injured Wanderlei Silva. Bellator officials confirmed with MMA Fighting that it’s still “undecided” whether ‘King Mo’ will take Silva’s slot and compete against Mirko Cro Cop, or get a different opponent.
The 2016 Rizin FF openweight grand prix is currently in the quarterfinal stages, where are set for the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on Dec. 29. The semifinals and finals will be Dec. 31. Mirko Cro Cop, Baruto Kaito, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Shane Carwin, Amir Aliakbari, Valentin Moldavsky and Szymon Bajor are the remaining competitors in the tournament.
Also on the Bellator 169 card, 20-year-old James Gallagher picked up another win, defeating Anthony Taylor in the co-main event by third-round submission.
The fight was very competitive in the early portion, as Taylor had some success landing several right hands on Gallagher in the first round. Gallagher also had his moments as he scored a takedown on Taylor and landed a few punches of his own.
It was in the second round that Gallagher picked up some momentum, landing hard leg kicks that had Taylor limping round the canvas. The Irish prospect would go on to land a leg kick in the third that exposed Taylor’s back, allowing him to climb on and get the back mount. There, Gallagher snatched a rear-naked choke that ultimately won him the bout.
Gallagher, a training partner of Conor McGregor, is now 5-0, and 2-0 under Bellator.
In the only women’s bout of the main card, Sinead Kavanagh put a beating on Elina Kallionidou in front of her home Irish crowd. The SGB Ireland fighter overpowered Kallionidou throughout the entire fight in both the stand up and grappling. It was a one-sided contest that had Kavanagh winning a 30-27, 30-25, 30-26 unanimous decision.
Kavanagh kept her undefeated label and is now 4-0 as a professional fighter.
Opening the main card on Spike, Daniel Weichel scored a quick victory over Brian Moore. The Bellator veteran outboxed Moore for the majority of the round before taking him down, mounting him, and securing an arm-triangle choke to get the tap.
Weichel said he wanted a shot at featherweight champion Daniel Straus in his post-fight interview. He’s now on a three-fight winning streak since losing to Patricio Freire in a 145-pound title fight back at Bellator 138. Weichel also improved his MMA record to 38-9.