The injury-ravaged Bellator 115 plugged on and saw heavyweight champion Vitaly Minakov score a deceptively dominant decision win over former UFC heavyweight Cheick Kongo.
The first round saw Minakov have a point taken by referee Herb Dean following a pair of groin shots to Kongo. However, the early goings saw the Russian repeatedly rock the French kickboxer. Kongo would recover a bit, surviving grappling exchanges in the third and likely taking the fourth round. The final round, however, saw Minakov perched atop Kongo for nearly the entire round.
The final scorecards read 48-46, 48-46, 48-46, but this was something of a missed opportunity for Minakov, in spite of the neat win.
Kongo is, by far, the biggest name on the Bellator heavyweight roster, and while Minakov lit him up standing in the first 10 minutes, the dominance (and excitement) faded by the end, leaving Minakov with a big win when he was in position to become one of Bellator's biggest names.
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Past the headline, while the card still sported the aforementioned heavyweight title bout, it was supposed to feature two tournament bouts in the middleweight semifinal matchup between Jeremy Kimball (who replaced Doug Marshall, who was removed from the bout due to a suspension from a drug-test failure) and Dan Cramer and a welterweight semifinal matchup featuring Andrey Koreshkov and Sam Oropeza.
Both bouts were cancelled at the weigh-ins, when Kimball failed to make weight and Koreshkov passed on the bout to instead battle the flu.
The rest of the main card featured non-tournament bouts between (mostly) less-than-established talent. Most notably, Mikkel Parlo took a unanimous-decision win over KOTC veteran Johnny Cisneros.
Additionally, Herman Terrado overcame a brutal second-round onslaught from Justin Baesman and nearly scored one of 2014's biggest comeback wins of 2014 with a wild third-round armbar. Baesman, too, would survive his close call, leading to a 29-28, 28-28, 28-28 majority draw.
The full results are as follows:
Main Card Results
- Vitaly Minakov defeats Cheick Kongo by unanimous decision (48-46, 48-46, 48-46).
- Herman Terrado vs. Justin Baesman ends in majority draw (29-28 Terrado, 28-28, 28-28).
- Kelly Anundson defeats Volkan Oezdemir by submission via neck crank at 3:19 of Round 2.
- Mikel Parlo defeats Johnny Cisneros by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27).
Preliminary Card Results
- Rick Reeves defeats James Terry by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).
- Freddie Aquitania defeats Josh Appelt by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
- Sinjen Smith defeats Jason Powell by submission via armbar at 1:52 of Round 1.
- Benito Lopez defeats Oscar Ramirez by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28).
