IRISH MMA FANS will get an early Christmas gift this year, with Bellator and BAMMA set to join forces for a bumper event in Dublin.
Bellator president Scott Coker revealed exclusively to The42 last week that the US-based organisation — the most prominent rival to the UFC — plans to stage a show in Ireland for the first time before the end of 2016.
Irish MMA journalist Peter Carroll has now reported in The Irish Mirror that Bellator will collaborate with British promotion BAMMA to stage two events in one evening at the 3Arena on Friday, 16 December.
It will mark BAMMA’S fourth visit to the venue in the space of 15 months. Most recently, BAMMA 26 took place on 10 September and it was headlined by a successful flyweight title defence for Rany Saadeh against Northern Ireland’s Andy Young.
“It’s going to be a really unique event because fans will be able to come to an arena and see a whole BAMMA card and then after that, they will get a whole Bellator card. It’s basically two shows in one night,” Coker told Carroll.
Bellator 169 in Dublin is to be headlined by a bout between former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal and Satoshi Ishii, who won a gold medal in judo for Japan at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Undefeated SBG prospect James Gallagher is also expected to feature in what will be his second bout for Bellator. The 19-year-old featherweight, who debuted with a unanimous-decision win over Mike Cutting in July, was due to fight at Bellator 164 in Israel next month but he has now been pulled from that card with a view to competing in Dublin instead.
SevereMMA has also reported that several bouts of Irish interest are in the works for the BAMMA 27 portion of the card, including a bantamweight title fight between French star Tom Duquesnoy and Ballymena’s Alan Philpott.
Tickets will go on general sale from Ticketmaster at 9am this Friday.
