A heavyweight tilt pitting Daniel
James against Gokhan
Saricam is among several additions to the
Bellator 297 bill.
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The California-based promotion announced multiple bouts for the
event, including the James-Saricam clash that is set for the
evening’s main draw. Additionally, the following seven contests
were confirmed for the prelims: Roman
Faraldo vs. Bobby Nash at
welterweight; Gadzhi
Rabadanov vs. Pieter
Buist at lightweight; Jaleel
Willis vs. Ramazan
Kuramagomedov at welterweight; Alex
Polizzi vs. Karl Moore at
light heavyweight; Archie
Colgan vs. Emmanuel
Sanchez at lightweight; Norbert
Novenyi Jr. vs. Kamil
Oniszczuk at middleweight and Timur
Khizriev vs. Richie
Smullen at featherweight.
Bellator 297 takes place on June 16 at Wintrust Arena in Chicago
and is headlined by a light heavyweight title clash between
Vadim
Nemkov and Yoel Romero.
In the co-main event, Sergio
Pettis will defend the bantamweight strap against reigning
featherweight king Patricio
Freire. The evening’s main card airs on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET/6
p.m. PT, while prelims stream on the Bellator MMA YouTube channel,
the Showtime Sports YouTube channel and Pluto TV at 6 p.m. ET/3
p.m. PT.
A Chicago native, James has been victorious in his last five
professional outings — with all of those victories coming inside
the distance. He garnered attention by scoring a second-round TKO
of Tyrell
Fortune at Bellator 288 and followed that effort with a
third-round stoppage of Marcelo
Golm in the Bellator 293 headliner on March 31.
Saricam, meanwhile, had a four-bout promotional winning streak
snapped in his last outing, when he fell to Oleg Popov
via unanimous decision at Bellator 291. The 32-year-old Turkey
native owns an 8-2 professional mark overall.