Bellator 249 Results: Cyborg gets first ever submission win, possible boxing fight in the future.

On Thursday night Bellator MMA was live with their event Bellator 249: Cyborg vs Blencowe. Unfortunately, hours before the event, the co-main event fight had to be scrapped, as the Patricky Pitbull was diagnosed with something called labyrinthitis. I had never heard of it before, but basically, it's swelling inside the ear, that makes someone super dizzy. All the best to Patricky, and hopefully we can see the former LFA champ Jaleel Willis make his Bellator debut soon enough.

Main Event:

In the main event, Cris Cyborg defended her Bellator title for the first time against Australian boxer, Arlene Blencowe. (Article continues below).

Cyborg dominated the fight everywhere; standing up and on top with ground and pound. Mid-way through the second round, Blencowe gave up her back, and Cyborg capitalized on the opportunity. She sunk in the rear naked choke to get the tap out. Surprisingly, this is the first time in her professional career to earn a victory by submission. I think Cyborg is going to dominate in Bellator.

Cyborg defeats Arlene Blencowe at 2:36 of round 2 by rear naked choke submission. Photo taken by me.

There's actually talk of Cyborg participating in a professional boxing fight. Scott Coker confirmed there is conversation taking place with boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn for a potential boxing fight between between Cyborg and Irish boxer Katie Taylor. Taylor won a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympic games, which was the first time the Olympics featured women boxing. Taylor has gone on to win the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF, and Ring Magazine lightweight titles in boxing with a professional record of 16-0. Cyborg has trained in the past with the boxer some consider to be the female boxing GOAT, Claressa Shields. With huge hype that surrounded the McGregor vs Mayweather boxing fight, and the current talk of Amanda Nunes boxing against Claressa Shields, I would not be too surprised if Scott Coker ends up successfully setting up a boxing fight for Cyborg. Personally, I would love to see Cyborg in a pro boxing fight. Comment below if you would like to see Cyborg in a boxing fight!

In the fight that was bumped up to become the co-main event, Leandro Higo defeated Ricky Bandejas looking better than ever. Higo looked much improved on his way to a second round submission victory. With a newly crowned champion at bantamweight making this an exciting time for the weight class in Bellator, setting Leandro Higo up well for a big bout up next.

The other main card bout that I wrote about in my predictions article unfortunately ended early as a no contest due to a low blow. Canadian Mandel Nallo landed a big knee strike on Saad Awad down low while in the clinch to end the fight. Hopefully this fight can be rebooked soon so we can get a proper ending to this fight.

Bellator's next event is Bellator 250: Mousasi vs Lima, on Thursday, October 29. I am very excited to announce that leading up this event, I will be publishing my rankings for Bellator MMA. I have been unable to find any official fighter rankings for Bellator. When I looked to see if I could find any fan created, unofficial rankings, I found a few, but none that are still updated. One of the top Google results I got when researching that actually brought me to a 2014 article. In 2014, Cyborg hadn't even made her UFC debut yet! So I decided i would make my own rankings for Bellator. Now my rankings are unofficial, I am not affiliated with Bellator MMA in any way, and my rankings may differ from any published or non-published official rankings. My rankings will continue to be updated. I will start publishing one weight class per day leading up to their next event in just under two weeks. Click here to view My Bellator MMA Rankings.