Forum gets another Bellator title fight
Bellator MMA will return to the Forum on Jan. 20 by flexing the strength of its deep welterweight division, matching champion Douglas Lima against former UFC title challenger Rory MacDonald.
“When I signed with Bellator, I made it clear I wanted to take over — multiple weight classes and multiple championships,” MacDonald said in a prepared statement. “Douglas Lima and his title are first on the list before I move onto the next.”
Tickets for the card are scheduled to go on sale at 10 a.m. Sept. 29 at Ticketmaster.
MacDonald (19-4), a 28year-old Canadian, debuted in Bellator by defeating England’s Paul Daley by rear naked chokehold in May.
He departed the UFC following a loss to Stephen Thompson, after engaging in a riveting 2015 title loss to Robbie Lawler.
In Brazil’s Lima, 29, MacDonald confronts a champion who successfully defended his belt at New York’s Madison Square Garden on June 24, defeating Riverside’s Lorenz Larkin by unanimous decision.
“I haven’t been this healthy in a long time and Rory is going to be just another win on my record,” Lima said in the statement.
Bellator President Scott Coker, who staged a Tito Ortiz-Chael Sonnen main event at the Forum in January, said the upcoming main event will illustrate the talent in his welterweight division.
“These two are going to put on an incredible show,” he said.
Eyeing Cotto
Miguel Cotto was hoping to have either Gennady Golovkin or Canelo Alvarez available for his farewell fight Dec. 2 at Madison Square Garden, but those two fighters seem headed for a rematch. So unbeaten lightweight champion Mikey Garcia says he’d like to be considered.
“I would really go to 154 [pounds] in [December] for Cotto,” Riverside’s Garcia texted The Times on Wednesday after floating the idea on social media last week.
Garcia (37-0, 30 knockouts) last fought July 29, posting an impressive unanimous-decision victory over former four-division champion Adrien Broner at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
“I’ve seen what Mikey has said on social media and would like to know more. Mikey knows how to contact me,” said Eric Gomez, president of Golden Boy Promotions, which handles four-division champion Cotto.
The 36-year-old Cotto (41-5, 33 KOs) won the World Boxing Organization superwelterweight title Aug. 26 by defeating Yoshihiro Kamegai at StubHub Center.
Gomez said he spoke to Cotto’s team in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, hours before Hurricane Maria struck the island. Gomez said he will seek to reconnect with Cotto once power is restored following the most vicious storm to hit the island since the 1930s.
Garcia has also lobbied to fight super-featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko at 135 pounds or the winner of Saturday’s lightweight title bout between champion Jorge Linares of Venezuela and Luke Campbell of England.
“I might be hot enough for the [Cotto] fight,” Garcia wrote.
Garcia has pledged allegiance to Showtime to televise his fights, while Cotto fights on HBO.
Asked who would televise the bout, Gomez said, “Let’s see if we can get a deal done and then we’ll get to that.”
The other primary option for Cotto would be former middleweight champion David Lemieux in a 160-pound fight, Gomez said.