Ralek Gracie signs with Bellator, plans to debut at Bellator 170 in January

After signing a Bellator contract, Ralek Gracie is planning to compete in MMA for the first time since May 2010.

The news was initially announced by Brett Okamoto at ESPN.com and was subsequently confirmed to MMAjunkie. Gracie also tweeted his own confirmation.

Gracie (3-0 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) will reportedly compete at middleweight and has a target date for his promotional debut of Bellator 170 on Jan. 21, 2017. That event takes place at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., the main card airs on Spike following prelims on MMAjunkie. Chael Sonnen meets Tito Ortiz in the night’s main event.

Gracie last fought at Dream 14 on May 29, 2010, defeating Kazushi Sakuraba by unanimous decision. Prior to that fight, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist scored armbar victories over Alavutdin Gadzhiyev and Katsuyori Shibata.

Despite Gracie’s time away from the cage, he is only 31 years old.

The son of Rorion Gracie, Ralek has spent the last several years focusing on Metamoris, the submission grappling promotion he founded in 2012. In July, he submitted Garry Tonon with a kneebar in the main event of Metamoris 7.

He has fallen under controversy in recent days after a report at FloGrappling.com detailed an e-mail from Ryron and Rener Gracie, Ralek’s brothers, sent to an internal e-mail list warning people away from doing business with their brother and Metamoris.

The promotion has faced recent allegations of failure to pay competitors and mishandling of customer credit card information.

“Ralek has engaged in dishonest and fraudulent activity, and continues to do so despite our repeated efforts to guide him,” the email reads. “We have decided to terminate all business relations with Ralek and Metamoris.”

For more on Bellator 170, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.