Bellator 115 - Cheick Kongo vs. Vitaly Minakov

Date: Friday, April 4th
Preliminary Card (Spike.com): 18:00 LP.net / 4pm PST / 7pm EST Bellator 115 live stream
Main Card Time (Spike TV): 20:00 LP.net / 6pm PST / 8pm EST (10pm tape delay on West coast)
Live Streams: Live on Spike TV - http://www.vipbox.tv (All MMA events are listed under the UFC button. Press the UFC button and you'll see the event in the list.)





Main Card (Spike TV)

Vitaly Minakov (13-0) vs. Cheick Kongo (20-8-2) (Heavyweight Championship)
Andrey Koreshkov (15-1) vs. Sam Oropeza (11-2) (Welterweight Tournament Semifinals)
Dan Cramer (10-4) vs. Jeremy Kimball (10-4) (Middleweight Tournament Semifinals)
Johnny Cisneros (8-2) vs. Mikkel Parlo (11-2) (Middleweight)

Preliminary Card (Spike.com)

Kelly Anundson vs. Volkan Oezdemir (Light Heavyweight)
Herman Terrado vs. Justin Baesman (Welterweight)
James Terry vs. Rick Reeves (Welterweight)
Freddie Aquitania vs. Josh Appelt (Heavyweight)
Jason Powell vs. Sinjen Smith (Lightweight)
Oscar Ramirez vs. Benito Lopez (Flyweight)

Other

- Doug Marshall was originally announced as one of the participants in the Middleweight tournament. However, he was pulled from the bout due to a current suspension and was replaced by Mikkel Parlo.

What do you think about Kongo at +230

On April 03 2014 13:42 alejandicto wrote: What do you think about Kongo at +230

Most of the bettors that I talk to seem to think all 4 of the favorites on the main card will win, and I agree with them.

IMO, it's a hard card to make any money on, as the underdogs all have something wrong with them. For example, Kongo has a weak chin and could get knocked out here. Koreshkov is the best striker Oropeza has ever faced. Kimball is a flake, and doesn't always fight to the best of his ability, and Cramer might just be a little better than him anyway. Parlo is a better fighter than Cisneros.

Bellator is usually the place where upsets happen, but just like last weeks event, I don't think there will be any upsets here. However, in the Kongo/Minakov fight, Kongo does have the better cardio here, and the fight is a 5-round fight. If Kongo can survive the first 2 rounds, he might have a shot to win, but he's facing a better fighter who is more well rounded in MMA.

Yeah, I better pass on betting in this card as I am not sure about any fight, I will wait until Nelson vs Minotauro. Thanks.

Andrey Koreshkov is off of the Bellator 115 card due to having the flu. Jeremy Kimball vs. Dan Cramer has been scrapped, due to Kimball missing weight. (we can only bet on 2 fights now)


Vitaly Minakov (253.4) vs. Cheick Kongo (232.2) – for heavyweight title
Justin Baesman (170.9) vs. Herman Terrado (170)
Kelly Anundson (205.8) vs. Volkan Oezdemir (205.6)
Johnny Cisneros (192.6) vs. Mikkel Parlo (193.5) – catchweight fight
Rick Reeves (170.1) vs. James Terry (170.3)
Josh Appelt (242.9) vs. Freddie Aquitania (238)
Jason Powell (155.2) vs. Sinjen Smith (155.1)
Benito Lopez (125.9) vs. Oscar Ramirez*

* Ramirez missed weight and was given two hours to make the flyweight maximum of 126 pounds.

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Vitaly Minakov's weight

Bellator 115: 253.4
Bellator 108: 249
Bellator 97: 239.1
Bellator 96: 246
Bellator 79: 245.8

Looks like he got used to the American diet.

Kongo is currently +275 on 5dimes, +265 on Bookmaker. Due to Minakov looking fat yesterday during the weigh-ins, I'll be betting Kongo later today, just waiting to see if his line gets any better.

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For the Minakov/Kongo fight, I'm taking Over 1.5 rounds at -110.

Minakov

- Above average power in his hands. The reason why I say this is cuz he managed to knock one opponent down with a straight jab, and another opponent down with an uppercut where his arm was fully extended like an old Irish boxer.
- He tries to get his opponents down after closing the distance with his hard-straight punches. Once he gets on top, I'm surprised that his top game isn't more deadly. His GnP is weak imo, and he hasn't shown me anything impressive with his top game Sambo skills.
- He'll have the worse cardio in this fight.

Kongo

- Taller fighter: 6'4 vs. 6'3
- Longer reach: 82 inches vs. 78 inches
- He always fights from the outside, and picks his shots. He'll make the fight boring by staying on his bicycle if he needs to; anything to avoid getting hit.
- Kongo has the speed advantage.
- He has decent TDD, but even if he gets taken down, I don't think he'll get finished. And since Minakov isn't top heavy from what I've seen, Kongo can eventually get back up. Kongo on the bottom will just be draining the clock while he defends a weak top fighter.
- Kongo always likes to hold power punchers against the cage, so he can slow the fight down and make it look like he's winning. He actually does this versus everyone nowadays.

I expect Minakov to win, but I think Kongo's style and movement will drag this out past 1.5 rounds. You could argue that both Roy Nelson and Mark Hunt easily knocked Kongo out in round 1, but I'm banking on Minakov's more technical style to be the difference here and waste more clock; Hunt/Nelson only have 1 weapon in their arsenal, and are super aggressive with it.

Can someone explain how the Bellator system works ? How are there always championships w 1/4 finals semi finals and etc. what happens with the guy that wins the belt

On April 04 2014 16:21 Spitfiree wrote: Can someone explain how the Bellator system works ? How are there always championships w 1/4 finals semi finals and etc. what happens with the guy that wins the belt

Bellator's motto is something like: "Where title shots are earned, not given."

Basically, Bellator has tournaments throughout the year, and the winner of each tournament gets $100k and a shot at the title. Bellator has every weight class that the UFC does, aside from Flyweight, so there's always tournaments going on.

Prelims start in 12 minutes: http://www.spike.com/shows/bellator-mma/live

Oh man, Jimmy is a tiny lightweight lol

On April 04 2014 19:35 KeanuReaver wrote: Oh man, Jimmy is a tiny lightweight lol

Yeah, he's a midget, but knowledgeable in his field. Him and Joe Rogan are very similar in many areas, which is probably why they had good chemistry together during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.


Here's the main card stream: http://www.bestsportgo.tv/20140404/vv-789420--533f131aa5b873.74540073.html

On April 03 2014 16:06 PuertoRican wrote: Show nested quote + On April 03 2014 13:42 alejandicto wrote: What do you think about Kongo at +230 Most of the bettors that I talk to seem to think all 4 of the favorites on the main card will win

brave assessment

and Kongo gets worse and worse every fight, he now even seems timid while striking event against a sambo guy ffs