Bellator 47 Results: A Solid Event, If Not Just A Bit Underwhelming

The Bellator Fighting Championships promotion returned from a one-month hiatus yesterday with its “Bellator 47” event, featuring both semi-final fights in their “Summer Series” Featherweight Tournament. Unfortunately, both of those fights felt a little flat and frankly failed to live up to expectations. However, the good news is that Bellator 47 saw some pretty crazy finishes in the lead-up to those two fights. Here are the full results as well as some early commentary on Bellator 47.

Pat Curran defeats Ronnie Mann via unanimous decision. Marlon Sandro defeats Nazareno Malegarie via unanimous decision. Chris Horodecki defeats Chris Saunders via unanimous decision. Neil Grove defeats Zak Jensen via TKO at 2:00 of round 1. William Romero defeats Daniel Langbeen via unanimous decision. Alex Ricci defeats Alka Matewa via TKO at 2:40 of round 2. Alexandre Bezerra defeats Jesse Gross via submission (rear naked choke) at 1:28 of round 1.

The night started out with an emphatic “oomph”, which was Neil Grove and Zak Jensen coming out and swinging for the fences. It looked like Jensen got the better of the earliest exchanges, but Grove kept his composure and continued to both trade leather and control his opponent on the ground. It was a pretty wild brawl, and a big “welcome back Bellator!” moment. This was definitely one of the night’s biggest highlights.

I enjoyed seeing Chris Horodecki in Bellator, and I think he’ll make an interesting addition to the next Bellator Lightweight Tournament. Chris Saunders was a lot tougher than I expected, but still, he was thoroughly controlled for most of this fight. Horodecki really “embraced the grind” for this fight, but since it was Chris Horodecki, he did stay active and the fight was mostly entertaining.

Next up we had another crazy finish, with Alexandre Bezerra choking his opponent unconscious with a Rear Naked Choke that wasn’t under the chin. It’s very rare that something like that happens, and in all honesty, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen something like that happen. I’ve seen guys tap out due to how much pain a good Rear Naked Choke that’s not under the chin causes to their jaw/chin area, but I’ve never seen someone legitimately choked unconscious. That was definitely a very cool moment.

I’ve got to give credit where credit is due: Nazareno Malegarie has one heck of a chin. He also displayed some improving striking against Marlon Sandro, who definitely looked quite good. In the end, Sandro’s experience was just too much for Malegarie, and towards the end of the fight Sandro was so confident in his submission defense that he began taking Malegarie down. It was another tough loss for Malegarie, but one he could be proud of. And I definitely think Marlon Sandro has emerged as the favorite to win the “Summer Series”.

I say that because neither Pat Curran nor Ronnie Mann really impressed me during their three-round fight. They were both active, but they never seemed to commit to anything. This is something that can unfortunately happen from time to time: both are so good that they ended up neutralizing each other, and they respected each other’s skills so much that they came off as a little gun-shy. In the end, I think Pat Curran did deserve to win, but this just wasn’t the fight I was hoping it would be.

Overall, I did enjoy Bellator 47. This wasn’t Bellator at its best, but it wasn’t a bad event by any stretch of the imagination. Ultimately, this event left me no bigger but also no less of a fan of the promotion. While slightly underwhelming, it was still a solid night of fights.