Just about 24 hours after former Bellator middleweight champ, Rafael Lovato Jr. released his title due to ongoing medical conditions, Bellator has scheduled a fight for the vacant middleweight title. The fight is set to take place in San Jose on May 9, at Bellator 243 as the co main event.
News broke Tuesday that Gegard Mousasi (46-7-2 MMA, 4-1 Bellator) will be fighting current Bellator welterweight champ, Douglas Lima (32-7 MMA, 14-3 Bellator) for the vacant title.
Lima looks to become a two-division champion and join the names of Ilima Lei Macfarlane, Patricio Freire, and Ryan Bader as Bellator’s double champions.
Mousasi lost his middleweight title in his last fight against Lovato Jr. in a razor close decision.
Suprisingly, this isn’t the first time that Mousasi is fighting the current middleweight champion that’s looking to become double champ status.
In September of 2018, Mousasi took on then welterweight champion Rory Mcdonald, who was looking to take the middleweight belt from him. In a champion vs. champion match up, Mousasi won the fight by TKO in the second round by way of ground and pound strikes and retained his status as champion.
The middleweight championship will be the co main event on May 9 and will be headlined by current light heavyweight and heavyweight champion, Ryan Bader (27-5 MMA, 5-0 Bellator) where he looks to defend his light heavyweight title for against Vadim Nemkov (11-2 MMA, 4-0 Bellator).
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