The two winningest fighters in Bellator history face off in the main event of Saturday’s Bellator 221. In that contest, lightweight champion Michael Chandler puts his title on the line against featherweight titleholder Patricio Freire.
This is not just a champion vs. champion fight. There is something very personal about this matchup for Freire, who watched his older brother Patricky lose to Chandler on two occasions. The most recent of those fights was at Bellator 157, where Chandler scored a first-round knockout victory to claim the vacant lightweight title.
Bellator 221 also features a welterweight contest between ex-champion Douglas Lima and the undefeated Michael Page. The winner of the bout moves on to face the victor of the upcoming Rory MacDonald vs. Neiman Gracie contest in the final of the welterweight grand prix.
Also, the unbeaten A.J. McKee puts his perfect record on the line against ex-featherweight champ Pat Curran.
Bellator 221 takes place at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., near Chicago. The main card streams on DAZN following prelims on MMA Junkie.
Check out five burning questions about the fight card:
1. Is knowledge really power?
When featherweight champ Freire steps into the cage to face lightweight kingpin Chandler in the main event of Bellator 221, he believes he will have a distinct advantage over the three-time champ. Freire (28-4 MMA, 16-4 BMMA), who is the No. 10-ranked fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie MMA featherweight rankings, believes that the experience his brother, Patricky has in fighting Chandler (19-4 MMA, 16-4 BMMA) will give him an edge in the fight.
“Of course he can surprise me, a fight is a fight,” Freire told MMA Junkie. “But he’s been entirely figured out. We know every move that he makes, the way he sets things up, how he closes the distance. His defense – if there is one or if there isn’t. The way he is on top. Which hand he uses to hold down on the opponent’s hip, which takedown he shoots for first, what follows.
“We know it all. We’re training based on that and we’re going to come for him. We’re going to do some damage.”
Take note to how many times Freire says “we” during that exchange. This fight is very much a family affair for him. He obviously wants to win the 155-pound title not just for himself, but also for his brother, who he referred to as “the king without the crown” of the lightweight division.
Knowing how much this fight means to Freire, one has to wonder if all the knowledge he will presumably have will be of any use to him when the cage door closes. Freire cannot fight with emotion in the hopes of getting one back for his brother in this high-stakes matchup.
2. Now, this fight is really the biggest test of Michael Page’s career, right?
We keep waiting for “MVP” to stumble, and he keeps trucking right along and racking up wins. Now 14-0 and coming off a victory over Paul Daley in the opening round of the Bellator welterweight grand prix, the 32-year-old faces the younger and much more experienced Lima in the second round of the eight-man tournament.
Lima, the former two-time Bellator welterweight champion, has been facing the best of the promotion’s 170-pound division since before Page (14-0 MMA, 10-0 BMMA) signed with Bellator. Lima (30-7 MMA, 12-3 BMMA), who is 31, is coming off a technical submission win over former champion Andrey Koreshkov. The submission gave Lima 25 career stoppage victories. Eight of those stoppages have come under the Bellator banner. Lima has the most stoppage wins in the history of Bellator’s welterweight division.
This is a fight that Lima, who is the No. 10-ranked welterweight, hoped he would get. He knows that expectations are high for Page, and that Page is one of the most hyped fighters on the Bellator roster. For Lima, the fight represents a chance to get one step closer to once again fighting for Bellator gold – for Page, this is the fight that could end any questions about just how good he is.
3. Is A.J. McKee looking past Pat Curran?
McKee believes he is ready to fight for the featherweight title. He expressed this thought in January when he said he is a bad matchup for champ Freire. He was more emphatic in his request to fight for the title during the recent Bellator 221 conference call when he and Freire had a heated, and at times profane, exchange.
McKee has spent his entire career with Bellator. During the four years he’s fought for the promotion, McKee (13-0 MMA, 13-0 BMMA) has won 13 fights. He gets a big test at Bellator 221, where he faces former two-time featherweight champion Curran (23-7 MMA, 13-4 BMMA).
Curran joined Bellator in 2010, fought for the title for the first time in 2011 and won the strap for the first time in 2012. Three of his four defeats under the Bellator banner came in championship bouts. His most recent loss was to Daniel Weichel, a man who twice fought for the 145-pound title. Curran, who has 17 more fights than McKee, is no slouch. He represents, by far, the biggest test of McKee’s career.
If McKee remains unbeaten at Bellator 221, expect him to very loudly proclaim his desire, or perhaps his right, to fight for the title, and don’t be surprised if the Bellator brass agree with him.
4. Is Jake Hager more than a wrestler?
Jake Hager is wasting no time getting back in the cage, which makes sense considering he is 37 years old. Hager, the former WWE heavyweight champion, made his MMA debut in January with a first-round submission win over J.W. Kiser.
Hager put his amateur wrestling skills – he was an All-American for the University of Oklahoma – to good use in that bout, taking the fight to the mat early and keeping it there without absorbing much damage.
Bellator has never been afraid to give fighters it sees as bankable commodities opponents they’re supposed to beat. That was the case in Hager’s first fight and that’s also the case in his second bout, as well. Hager (1-0 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) faces T.J. Jones in this heavyweight contest. Jones (1-1 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) has two fights to his name. The first of those bouts took place in 2015 and the other in 2017.
With so little time between fights, it’s going to be interesting to see if Hager tests his striking at all in this matchup or if he falls back to his wrestling background. If Hagar wants to contend for a title in 2020, which he said he hoped to do during his post-fight interview at Bellator 214, he’s going to need to show all-around skill and progression.
5. Is Tywan Claxton pushing too hard?
Tywan Claxton had one of the more memorable debuts in Bellator history. At Bellator 186, Claxton blasted Jonny Bonilla-Bowman into the darklands with a nasty flying knee 89 seconds into their fight. Since then, Claxton has remained unbeaten, but he’s flown a bit under the radar, which is understandable considering the bar he set for himself in that first fight with the promotion. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tune in to see Claxton’s featherweight bout against James Bennett.
Claxton is someone to watch in the 145-pound division, but he’s still a work in progress. Claxton has said that his goal is to always to end his fights in highlight-reel fashion. However, his pursuit of flash might be hurting his overall progress. The featherweight division has a deep pool of talented fighters, if Claxton wants to advance up the ranks, he needs to show that he has substance to go along with his style. If Claxton (4-0 MMA, 4-0 BMMA) can impress the Bellator brass against Bennett (4-1 MMA, 1-0 BMMA), he could find himself with a spot in the planned 145-pound grand prix.
For more on Bellator 221, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.
