Five-round fights are no longer just for title bouts in Bellator
MMA.
Bellator president Scott Coker revealed during “The MMA Hour.”
on Wednesday that the California-based promotion will transition to
five rounds for all main-event fights beginning in 2022. The
remaining non-title headliners in 2021 will remain three rounds,
however.
“This is something that a lot of fans feel this happened in the
last two or three months because of the way the chips fell in some
of these fights, but really we’ve been talking about this for the
last six to eight months,” Coker said. “We decided that starting
Jan. 1 that all the main events fights will be five rounds.”
Recently, UFC signee Yoel Romero
expressed confusion following the end of his Bellator 266
headlining bout against Phil Davis,
which he lost after three rounds via split decision. Romero
apparently thought the contest was set for five rounds. Another
fight that could have warranted two more frames was the Bellator
267 headliner between Michael
Page and Douglas
Lima, which Page won by controversial split verdict.
According to Coker, the Bellator was moving toward five-round main
events even before those two high-profile outcomes.
“When the fight happened with Yoel Romero,
I said ‘I would’ve liked to have seen two more rounds,’” Coker
said. “Same with [the] MVP [fight], we needed to pull the trigger.
So starting Jan. 1 [it will happen], but it’s been in the works for
some time.”