Two-time NCAA national wrestling champion Jordan Oliver will make
his professional MMA debut against Andrew
Triolo in a featherweight fight on the preliminary card at
Bellator 298.
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The promotion on Tuesday announced the finalized lineup for the
card, which also includes a new bantamweight matchup pitting
Josh
Hill against Kasum
Kasumov. Bellator 298 takes place at Sanford Pentagon in Sioux
Falls, S.D., and is headlined by a welterweight clash between
Logan
Storley and Brennan
Ward. The main card airs on Showtime at 10 p.m. ET/PT and
features a newly-elevated featherweight tilt between James
Gallagher and James
Gonzalez.
Oliver, who twice won national titles at Oklahoma State University,
signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator earlier this year. He was
89-6 over the course of his collegiate career, with the two
aforementioned national titles in folkstyle wrestling. He was also
a 2019 U.S. national champion in freestyle wrestling.
South Dakota’s Triolo is 0-1 in MMA. His lone professional outing
came at LFA 128 in April 2022, when he suffered a first-round TKO
defeat at the hands of Adamu
Isah.
There were also a few changes to previously-announced bouts at
Bellator 298. Sullivan
Cauley will face Hamza Salim
at light heavyweight, while Jairo
Pacheco will lock horns with Vladimir
Tokov at lightweight. Meanwhile, two middleweight contests —
Khalid
Murtazaliev vs. Mike
Shipman and Imamshafi
Aliev vs. Anthony
Adams were removed from the card.