What mattered most at Bellator 238 in Inglewood? Here are a few post-fight musings …
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1. Cris Cyborg’s big moment and what’s next
Cris Cyborg picked up her fourth major promotional championship with a fourth-round TKO of Julia Budd to claim the women’s featherweight title. This seems like the pinnacle for her at this point, and anything else she achieves going forward is gravy.
We all wanted to see that rematch with Amanda Nunes in the UFC, but it not coming to fruition might have been for the best. Cyborg seems to be infinitely happier fighting in Bellator, and it sounds like she’s getting a healthy payday to be there.
Although the narrative is that Bellator has a deeper women’s 145-pound division than the UFC, having Cyborg at the top can make things look thin in a hurry. The fight with Budd was compelling for its layer of perceived competitiveness, and more matchups like that will be needed to hold interest in her title run.
2. Darrion Caldwell impresses when needed
That was exactly the type of performance Darrion Caldwell needed to prove he’s among the frontrunners to win the Bellator featherweight grand prix. He took away Adam Borics’ undefeated record inside the first round, using his overwhelming grappling advantage to secure a submission.
Despite being the former Bellator bantamweight champion, it’s starting to look more and more like featherweight is Caldwell’s best division. He’s unbeaten at 145 pounds over eight career fights, and after some dull showings in recent years – particularly the one that saw him lose his belt to Kyoji Horiguchi – he needed a reminder.
Putting away a heavily hyped Borics within minutes was the statement Caldwell needed that he can’t be overlooked going into the final four of the grand prix.
3. Caldwell vs. A.J. McKee is a big fight
Speaking of the grand prix semifinals, the first matchup is locked in with Caldwell set to take on another unbeaten fighter in A.J. McKee. The two had a tense faceoff in the cage minutes after Caldwell’s win, and with good reason. It’s a huge fight with huge stakes.
McKee has beaten some solid opponents in putting together a 16-0 record, with all of those wins coming under the Bellator banner. He’s got a win over a former champion in Pat Curran, but he’s not faced someone at the level who is in their prime and of the caliber of Caldwell.
A lot of questions will be answered whene these two Bellator-bred fighters meet, and there’s massive upside for the winner, who will move to the tournament finals where they will fight for the featherweight championship and $1 million in prize money.
4. Sergio Pettis’ fresh start
It was good to see Sergio Pettis do so well in his Bellator debut. After garnering some criticism for never getting a finish in his 14-fight UFC career, Pettis was able to paint a different picture to start his Bellator tenure.
Pettis lit up Alfred Khashakyan with his strikes then choked him out cold on the mat for his first finish since 2013. The haters will say it only happened because he took a step back in competition with Bellator, but Khashakyan is by no means a can. Make no mistake that it was set up for Pettis to shine, though, and he delivered in spades.
He was never able to get over the hump and get a title fight during his UFC run, but Pettis put himself in a good spot to fight for Bellator’s vacant bantamweight title whenever the promotion decides to crown a new champion.
