[Brad.Taschuk]

Another nice tournament coming from Bellator. Haven't seen the ratings for Bellator 61, but with the NCAA tournament being in full swing, I would be shocked to see them down from last week. Ratings probably won't pick up until the tournament is over, but I've given up on the average UFC fan tuning in to Bellator at this point anyways, so that doesn't faze me anymore.

So, onwards... Pitbull! Rick Hawn!

Two weeks into Bellator’s Sixth season and yours truly is 6 of 8 when it comes to picking the first round fights. Nothing spectacular, but that sort of success rate is pretty decent when it comes to the sport of MMA, and if you’re the betting type it’ll likely net you some money. So let’s try to keep that going, and finally score the thus far elusive (or allusive, if you will) perfect week. This Friday begins the search for Michael Chandler’s first challenger in the Lightweight division, while former champion Eddie Alvarez is off getting a big name fight against Shinya Aoki.

Matchmaking messiness in the division aside, the Lightweight tournament continues Bellator’s trend of consistently making their divisions deeper and more talented. Whereas previous iterations of the 155 bracket have had a few solid fighters (Alvarez & Jorge Masvidal in Season One, Pat Curran & Roger Huerta in Season Two, Chandler & Patricky Freire in Season Four), in some cases it wasn’t discovered until during or after the tournament how good some of those men were.

http://www.fightlockdown.com/article...ghtweight.html

Thoughts?