After a confusing bit of nonsense last week before their Bellator 61 rematch, tomorrow’s scheduled heavyweight tournament final between Eric Prindle and Thiago Santos now appears to be off. The bout was a rematch of the season 5 bout that ended when Santos landed a hard kick to the groin that left Prindle unable to continue and the bout a no contest.
Mauro Ranallo’s Twitter was the first place I saw the bout canceled:
The two were supposed to fight last week but the fight was postponed a week when Bellator said Prindle was ill. Prindle went on The MMA Show and said that he was fine but that Santos was way over weight. It then was re-confirmed that Prindle was in fact ill and Bjorn Rebney said that Santos was only slightly overweight and could have made the weight.
Word is that Santos is 11 pounds over and won’t be able to hit the 265 pound limit forcing a cancellation.
So was Prindle actually sick last week? Everyone seems to confirm that he was, but his story about Santos seems to carry a bit more weight (pun intended) in light of this week’s nonsense.
Now it appears Bellator will be forced to name Prindle the tournament champion, despite not winning a finals bout, just to give Cole Konrad a fight. Meanwhile, Bellator couldn’t put together a rematch between Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler because title shots have to be earned through the title format?
Yikes.