Last Updated on October 22, 2012.
Bellator 78 lineup set with Good-Tsarev, Zaromskis-Koreshkov, Rogers, Straus
by Matt Erickson – mmajunkie.com
The lineup is set for next week’s Bellator 78 event, including a pair of promotional standouts on the main card.
Lyman Good vs. Michail Tsarev and Andrey Koreshkov vs. Marius Zaromskis make up a pair of Season 7 welterweight tournament semifinals. Plus, two-time middleweight tourney semifinalist Brian Rogers will meet Dominique Steele, and Season 6 featherweight tournament winner Daniel Straus takes on UFC vet Alvin Robinson.
The event takes place Oct. 26 at the Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. The four-fight main card airs live on MTV2, and a six-fight preliminary card streams on Spike.com.
Good (13-2 MMA, 6-2 BFC), Bellator’s first welterweight champion, looks for his third straight victory. In the opening round of the Season 7 tournament, he beat Jim Wallhead by unanimous decision. That advanced him to his meeting with Tsarev (24-2 MMA, 1-0 BFC), one of the promotion’s recent signees from Russia. Tsarev submitted Tim Welch just 1:57 into their Bellator 74 quarterfinal fight.
Zaromskis (19-6-1 MMA, 3-0 BFC), a former DREAM welterweight champ looks to move to 4-0 in the promotion after a unanimous decision win over Nordine Taleb in the tourney’s opening round. He meets Koreshkov (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC), who for the first time in his pro career had to go the distance to win a fight. He beat Jordan Smith this past month to advance to the semifinals.
New match ups to the main card are Rogers (9-4 MMA, 2-2 BFC), who looks to get back on track after falling in the welterweight tournament semifinals for the second straight time. He was knocked out by Andreas Spang in April after dominating the fight up until he was stopped. He meets Ohioan Dominique Steele (6-2 MMA, 0-0 BFC), who had a six-fight win streak snapped in January by UFC veteran Dave Branch.
And Straus (20-4 MMA, 6-1 BFC) takes a stay-busy fight while he awaits the winner of the featherweight title fight between champion Pat Curran and fellow tournament winner Patricio “Pitbull” Freire, a fight expected to take place in early 2013. Straus, whose only Bellator loss came to Freire in the Season 4 welterweight tournament, meets Robinson (12-6 MMA, 0-0 BFC), who makes his Bellator debut more than two years after first signing with the promotion. The four-fight UFC vet has won three of four after dropping four of five, including three in the UFC.
On the preliminary card, women’s 115-pound champion Zoila Gurgel (11-1 MMA, 5-0 BFC) meets the John Hackleman-trained Casey Noland (4-2 MMA, 0-1 BFC) in a non-title fight. Noland returns to Bellator just over a year after losing her promotional debut by split decision to Jessica Eye.
Other prelims include bantamweights Justin McNally (0-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Miguel Torres product Jake Nauracy (1-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC); Ohio-based lightweights Rocky Edwards (1-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Rob Hanna (1-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC); middleweights Jared Combs (8-2 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Mikkel Parlo (8-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC); middleweights Billy Horne (10-4 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Trey Houston (8-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC); and middleweights Shaun Asher (2-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Jason Butcher (4-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC).
The full Bellator 78 card includes:
MAIN CARD (MTV2, 8 p.m. ET)
- Lyman Good vs. Michail Tsarev – welterweight-tourney semifinals
- Andrey Koreshkov vs. Marius Zaromskis – welterweight-tourney semifinals
- Brian Rogers vs. Dominique Steele
- Alvin Robinson vs. Daniel Straus
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 6 p.m. ET)
- Justin McNally vs. Jake Nauracy
- Rocky Edwards vs. Rob Hanna
- Jared Combs vs. Mikkel Parlo
- Billy Horne vs. Trey Houston
- Zoila Gurgel vs. Casey Noland
- Shaun Asher vs. Jason Butcher