Inside the Matrix Part Deux / Bellator 251
If it ain't live, it's probably ONE Championship; Bellator's live, but we wish they edited that shit
Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
The last few weeks I’ve done Bellator/ONE doubleheaders for my weekly post and my readership numbers have been slowly fading like Donald Trump’s chance of a second term. But what the hell, I’m all-in on second-tier MMA, so I’ll keep plowing along!*
This week however, I’ll be abbreviating the Bellator aside from a few comments (I only watched three of the fights). Forthwith:
And he was, for the first half of the first round at least, and then it was a totally one-sided bloody mess.
Bellator’s cameras were surprisingly restrained with Mrs. Van Zandt in the corner. Apparently the better half will be making her BKFC debut Super Bowl Weekend, which is like a car crash snuff film tragedy.
In the main event, Corey Anderson didn’t get knocked out by Melvin Manhoef, which would have been very Bellator, but also very fun, so not very Bellator.
Instead Corey pretty much dominated the fight with his wrestling which was totally expected, though perhaps more violently than we thought and with a finish.
Bellator has been in rough shape lately and these Mohegan Sun no-crowd shows have been overall pretty terrible. They really need to get together with RIZIN again and do a show with some exciting fights and a crowd at Saitama. Not likely anytime soon however.
Dom Lau out here like: “WE ARE (not) LIVE!”
Despite the taped nature, Inside the Matrix 2 is a sneaky good card that they presumably edited out of the scraps of last week’s Inside the Matrix show in Singapore. A bunch of fun, exciting fighters that I look forward to seeing fight. Plus we can be assured of quick pacing.
The first two fights of the night end in first round finishes with some brutality dished out via TKO by Meng Bo and a slick submission from Eko Roni Saputra. Meng Bo will (presumably) be fun to watch in the upcoming women’s atomweight tournament and Evolve Team Member Eko Roni will definitely be back in a ONE event shortly. Good stuff.
Next up is my man Yuya Wakamatsu who gave DJ a great fight in his ONE debut. He’s got Korean Evolve guy Kim Kyu Sung who I don’t know.
I was just about to write that Yuya was touching this dude and could knock him out at any minute. And he knocked him out. Yuya’s got bombs for a little guy. Another first round finish. So far I’m saying this show is superior to Inside the Matrix 1.
Eddie Alvarez killer Tim Nasty (Timofey Nastyukhin) vs Pieter Buist should be another banger. Tim just throwing heated overhands at the much taller Buist, but the bigman survives the first with his long kicking game. Buist makes it through round 2 as well and I’m a bit surprised he’s not showing more damage. Nastyukhin is throwing grenades at him to go along with some G&P elbows. Amazingly we make it the distance, but Tim’s got this locked up. Buist did well to last but he never amounted much in the way of useful offense, though Tim’s face is a little beat up so some definitely snuck in.
Curiously I was more excited about those previous two fights than the main event of Kiamrian Abbasov vs James Nakashima for the ONE Welterweight title. Despite his undefeated record, I’ve never thought much of Nakashima. Prove me wrong dude!
With the differential in size and strength**, Nakashima can’t get the takedown he’s looking for but his striking is on point. He finally lands a TD in the middle of the third and spends the rest of the round on top.
Damn. That was tough. Nakashima totally proved me wrong and is clearly a beast, but needs to find a weight class or figure out the ONE weight-cutting rules better. Nonetheless Abbasov went wild after a tough 15 minutes. Props to him.
That does it for Inside the Matrix 2. Next week is Volume 3 with a rat-tail fighting a UFC killer. Look out for it.
*I’m actually contemplating some slight changes to the focus and posting schedule of this here blog, as well as maybe a name change, so more on that down the road - I’ll take suggestions.
**Nakashima weighed in two kilos lighter than Abbasov