Ex-Giant wins heavyweight bout at MSG
MATT MITRIONE pummeled 40-yearold MMA heavyweight great Fedor Emelianenko in just 74 seconds to win the comain event of Bellator’s Madison Square Garden debut.
Mitrione (12-5) and Emelianenko both connected on right hands and hit the canvas late Saturday night. But Mitrione, who played nine games for the Giants in 2002, pounced and smashed Emelianenko (36-5) with uppercuts and busted open the Russian great.
“He’s the greatest to ever do it and just having the opportunity to step in there and trade blows with him is crazy,” Mitrione said. “I’m very fortunate, but at the same time I think I made the most of that opportunity. I’m just still in awe of Fedor’s cage intelligence.”
Emelianenko, maybe be the greatest fighter to never sign with UFC, had won his last five fights, but the days when he ruled in Japan as one of MMA’s most dynamic fighters and top heavyweights are well behind him.
Emelianenko, in his Bellator debut, might not have his career recover from this finish.
Chael Sonnen won a unanimous decision over Wanderlei Silva in a muchdelayed grudge match to take the light heavyweight bout in the final event of the AP night.
Sonnen and Silva had feuded — and even brawled in street clothes during a taping of an MMA reality show — for years and had an anticipated bout for a UFC pay-per-view scrapped in 2014. Sonnen (29-15-1) pressured Silva and stayed on top of the MMA great for most of the three rounds.
Bellator made its Madison Square Garden debut seven months after UFC christened the arena in the MMA genre with a record $17.7 million gate. Bellator was going to fall well shy of that massive box office bank, but for the No. 2 MMA promotion in the United States, just snagging a spot at MSG was a needed credibility boost.
Bellator will wait to find out if the pay-per-view buys (at $49.95 a clip) hit 200,000, the total the company aimed for to count as a major success. Bellator broadcast on pay-per-view for only the second time in promotional history, signaling another step in its growth as a rival for the industry-leading UFC.
Ryan Bader defeated Phil Davis by split decision in his Bellator debut to win the promotion’s light heavyweight championship. Bader (23-5) defeated Davis (17-4) in an MMA bout for the second time in his career and his win capped the undercard in Bellator’s New York debut. —AP