Bellator Fighting Championships returned for round five on Spike TV last night (Feb. 14, 2013) with a bantamweight title fight and the season eight middleweight tournament quarterfinals with yet another very entertaining night of exciting bouts.
The main event of the evening was a highly intriguing bout between Brazilian Nova Uniao teammates Eduardo Dantas and Marcos Galvao. The champion, Dantas, had a lot to prove heading into the fight as he was coming off a tremendous upset loss at the hands of Tyson Nam in a non-title bout last summer.
And boy, did he prove everything last night.
Dantas proved to be by far the quicker fighter early on, landing slick inside leg kicks and a stiff jab early on against Galvao, who was content to stalk the champ from the cage center and attempt to land big bombs with both his left and right hand.
Galvao briefly was in control after a slip from Dantas, which allowed him to secure a reverse body lock and attempt several takedowns, but he couldn't make use of the superior position other than a few nice knees to the back of the thigh.
When Dantas got the fight back to the feet, he became a bit more aggressive, looking to mix in power strikes with his accurate, lighter blows from the outside.
In the second round, "Dudu" really turned up the tempo, switching up his attack and hurting Galvao badly with a head kick, although the veteran flailed enough bombs to back him off and delay the inevitable for at least another minute.
Dantas took the initiative at this point, becoming the aggressor instead of being reactionary and as Galvao backed up, he stepped forward with a beautiful uppercut which caught Galvao just as he ducked his head down and sent his former mentor crashing to the canvas.
The champion followed Galvao down and landed four swift hammer fists to put him out cold, creating a very bittersweet victory as he showed tremendous emotion after knocking out his friend and teammate.
For complete Bellator 89 results and detailed round-by-round commentary of all the televised fights click here.
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