Road To The Finals Part 2: Richard Hale vs. Christian M'Pumbu

Hello once again fans and friends and welcome back to “Road To The Finals”, my special one-day-only four-part mini-series that takes a look at all four final match-ups of Bellator’s various Season Four tournaments. For the first part in the series, covering the Welterweight finale set to go down this very day, please click here. Now it’s time to focus on the only other tournament finale not featuring a Freire brother: the Light Heavyweight Tournament finale. Let’s get to it.

When Richard Hale made his Bellator debut back in March of this year, he came into the promotion with a very respectable record of 15-3-1, with a two-fight win-streak and having won four out of his last five fights. Hale was mostly known as a submission specialist, although he did have several (T)KO’s on his record. Hale’s opponent in the Quarterfinal round was Nik Fekete, and little did either men know that they’d both be making history when they fought at Bellator 38. Because at Bellator 38, Bellator saw its second victory by Inverted Triangle Choke. With that fantastic win, Hale put the entire division on notice, and many were predicting that he would find himself in the finals.

He ultimately did, but not before getting past a very tough and very game DJ Linderman. Despite Hale’s impressive submission game and striking, Linderman never backed down and refused to quit. After an epic Inverted Triangle, Hale’s fight with Linderman was more of a brawl than anything else. And after three intense rounds of action, Hale would take a Split Decision to secure his place in the finals.

Meanwhile, Christian M’Pumbu was also making a name for himself in Bellator. M’Pumbu entered Bellator on the heels of a Split Decision loss, but had won four fights in a row before that. All told, M’Pumbu held a record of 15-3-1 before entering the Bellator cage. Interestingly enough, M’Pumbu holds a victory over current UFC fighter Stefan Struve. Before debuting in Bellator, M’Pumbu had also displayed a knack for submissions.

But that all changed when M’Pumbu fought Chris Davis at Bellator 38. The fight did go to the third round, but not to the judge’s scorecards. M’Pumbu would end up TKO’ing Davis with only a few minutes left on the clock. Not content with a late-round TKO, M’Pumbu immediately followed that up with a first-round TKO against Tim Carpenter at Bellator 42. Carpenter spent most of the round “chasing and not stalking” M’Pumbu, as pointed out by the excellent Bellator announce team. Eventually, this would lead to M’Pumbu nailing a vicious strike that would send Carpenter careening down to the canvas.

I’d like to say that this was a fight between a submission expert and an iron-fisted power-puncher, but in truth, both of these fighters are much more than one-dimensional throw-aways. These two are dangerous in many different aspects of the game, and I have a feeling that that’s what is going to make this match-up very close and very exciting.

We’re now two down and two to go, fans and friends. Coming up: a look at the Freire brothers that took Bellator’s Season Four lighter-weight tournaments by storm. But for now: what do you think of this upcoming fight?