Bellator 166 results: Eduardo Dantas outpoints Joe Warren in rematch

Eduardo Dantas avenged his loss to Joe Warren to remain Bellator’s bantamweight champion.

At Friday’s Bellator 166 in Thackerville, Okla., ‘DuDu’ became the first man to defeat Warren in a decision, successfully defending his 135-pound title.

Warren didn’t seem to be able to find his rhythm or an answer to Dantas’ crisp jabs and powerful leg kicks all through out the five rounds. Dantas picked apart Warren with confidence and defended almost all his takedown attempts. In round five, the Brazilian was deducted a point after landing a second kick to Warren’s groin, but that wasn’t enough to stop Dantas from winning in the score cards.

With this win, the 27-year-old champion is now on a three-fight winning streak, and improved his professional MMA record to 19-4.

In the co-main event of the card, Bellator prospect A.J. McKee took on Ray Wood.

It was a scary fight for McKee in the first round, as Wood was throwing heavy strikes and even landed a flying knee that dropped McKee for a second. From then on, McKee looked to avoid any stand up exchanges with Wood, and exploited his superiority on the ground by taking down and controlling Wood for rounds two and three.

McKee won a unanimous decision to remain undefeated in his career with a record of 5-0.

Additionally, former Bellator bantamweight champion Marcos Galvao looked to bounce back from his loss to Dantas, that had him losing his title, by taking on veteran L.C. Davis.

It was a very tactical fight, where Galvao started strong but faded as the fight went on.

Galvao took the first round, using his grappling and securing a takedown on Davis. The second round was a lot closer, as Galvao showed signs of fatigue, but was active enough to get a takedown and briefly control the fight on the ground. Davis eventually was able to get on his feet and press the action, although he never really landed anything significant on the Brazilian.

The third round was much like the end of the second. Galvao looked tired and tried to takedown Davis, but failed every time. Davis pressed forward on the feet controlling the cage, but wasn’t able to land any significant shots. Galvao scored a split-decison win over Davis.

With this victory, ‘Loro’ is now 18-7-1 as a professional fighter.

Opening the main card, Chris Honeycutt got a very dominant win over Ben Reiter.

The 28-year-old American used his wrestling both offensively and defensively to win the fight. There was very little action on the feet with not many significant strikes thrown, but when it came to the ground, Honeycutt’s wrestling dominated the action. There was also a lot of inactivity from Reiter which caused a the decision on the judges’ cards to be very one-sided.

Honeycutt won the fight 30-26, 30-25, 30-25 on the three cards, and now finds himself on a three-fight winning streak.