Joe Pacheco vs. Brandon Halsey elevated to 185 tourney semifinal at Bellator 116

Bellator MMA’s Season 10 middleweight tournament has gotten a shakeup with a pair of reserve fighters being elevated into the semifinals.

Friday’s Bellator 116 fight between Joe Pacheco (7-1 MMA, 2-1 BMMA) and Brandon Halsey (5-0 MMA, 3-0 BMMA) has been switched from a reserve bout in the tournament to a tourney semifinal. Bellator officials announced the change on Tuesday, with the new fight taking the place of the previously scheduled semifinal between Jeremy Kimball (10-4 MMA, 1-1 BMMA) and Dan Cramer (10-4 MMA, 7-2 BMMA).

This past Thursday, the Kimball-Cramer semifinal bout was pulled from Bellator 115 when Kimball came in so far overweight, a source close to the promotion told MMAjunkie, that he wasn’t even part of the official weigh-in ceremony. Instead, the fight was yanked from the card and Kimball, the source said, was pulled from the tournament rather than have Bellator run the risk that he’d miss weight again this week.

With Kimball out, Cramer should still have been in against a new opponent. However, the source told MMAjunkie that Cramer was offered a fight this past Friday to stay on Bellator 115, but turned it down. And then he turned down a semifinal tournament fight against Pacheco this week, as well, effectively removing himself from the middleweight tournament. The source spoke on condition of anonymity since he is not authorized to speak publicly about the matchups.

The new semifinal bout between Pacheco and Halsey will close out the preliminary card of Bellator 116, which takes place Friday at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif. The main card airs on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com.

Pacheco will be looking to get back on track after a loss to Brennan Ward this past October at Bellator 102. He was submitted by Ward in the second round, and Ward went on to win the Season 9 tournament to get a shot at champion Alexander Shlemenko. The loss was the first of Pacheco’s career and snapped his perfect 7-0 start, including two wins for Bellator.

Halsey is a perfect 5-0, including his past three wins for Bellator, all in 2013. At Bellator 92, he submitted Rocky Ramirez in the third round. At Bellator 96, he took a split decision from Joe eager. And at Bellator 106 this past November, he knocked out Hector Ramirez in just 52 seconds.

The new Bellator 116 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 9 p.m. ET)

• Lavar Johnson vs. Blagoi Ivanov – heavyweight-tournament semifinal
• Nathan Coy vs. Adam McDonough – welterweight-tournament semifinal
• Joey Beltran vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
• Siala-Mou Siliga vs. Alexander Volkov – heavyweight-tournament semifinal

PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 7 p.m. ET)

For complete coverage of Bellator 116, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Brandon Halsey)