Ex-featherweight title challenger Daniel Weichel meets Paul Redmond at Bellator 169 in Dublin

Bellator’s December debut in Ireland has another fight booked for the card, and it features a former title challenger against one of Dublin’s own.

Two-fight UFC veteran Paul Redmond (10-6 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) will make his promotional debut in front of his home fans when he meets Daniel Weichel (37-9 MMA, 6-1 BMMA) in a featherweight bout at Bellator 169. The promotion announced the new booking today.

Bellator 169, which is a joint venture with BAMMA, takes place Dec. 16 at 3Arena in Dublin. The main card airs on Spike following prelims on MMAjunkie. In the main event, Muhammed Lawal meets Satoshi Ishii in a heavyweight fight.

Paul Redmond

Redmond will make his Bellator debut looking to get back in the win column. After eight fights under the Cage Warriors banner, he debuted in the UFC in January 2015 in Stockholm, stepping in for Alan Omer on short notice. But he missed weight for the featherwieght fight and went on to lose a unanimous decision. In July 2015 in Scotland, he was knocked out by Robert Whiteford in the first round. But earlier this year, he signed with BAMMA and picked up a decision win over Chris Stringer a month ago.

Weichel has just one loss in the past four years, and it was in a featherweight title fight against then-champ Patricio Freire at Bellator 138. After winning the promotion’s Season 10 tournament with submissions of Scott Cleve and Desmond Greene and a decision over Matt Bessette, he had to wait a bit for his title shot. After a split-call upset of Pat Curran, he got his shot at Freire, but “Pitbull” stopped him 32 seconds into the second round with a knockout.

Since that setback, the German has rebounded with a unanimous decision win over Georgi Karakhanyan and a split-decision victory over Emmanuel Sanchez at Bellator 159 in July.

The latest Bellator 169 card now includes:

• Satoshi Ishii vs. Muhammed Lawal
• James Gallagher vs. TBA
• Paul Redmond vs. Daniel Weichel
• Champ Tom Duquesnoy vs. Alan Philpott – for BAMMA bantamweight title
• Ronnie Mann vs. Martin Stapleton – for BAMMA vacant featherweight title
• Sean Tobin vs. Dylan Tuke

For more on Bellator 169, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.