Bellator Season 9 Featherweight Tournament Semifinals Slated for Oct. 11 in Kansas

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Bellator MMA’s Season 9 featherweight tournament semifinals now have a home, as promotion officials announced Thursday that the round of four will take place in October at Bellator 103.

The Oct. 11 event goes down at Kansas Star Casino in Wichita, Kan., and will also see David Rickels return to action. The former lightweight title challenger will try to rebound from his knockout loss to Michael Chandler when he meets J.J. Ambrose.

The Season 9 featherweight tourney kicks off Sept. 13 in Temecula, Calif., and will see Patricio Freire, Shahbulat Shamhalaev, Desmond Green and Joe Taimanglo face Diego Nunes, Akop Stepanyan, Fabricio de Assis Costa da Silva and Andrew Fisher, respectively.

Prior to the evening’s Spike TV-broadcast main card, the Bellator 103 preliminary card streams live on Spike.com and will feature Ricky Musgrave taking on Cody Carrillo at featherweight, while Jesse Thorton and Jeimeson Saudino do battle at 135 pounds.

Rickels, 24, saw a four-fight winning streak snapped by Chandler one month ago at Bellator 97. Prior to his 44-second defeat, “The Caveman” captured the Season 8 lightweight tournament title, besting Lloyd Woodard, Jason Fischer and Saad Awad to earn his crack at Chandler’s belt. Ambrose, meanwhile, has lost just one in his last 11 fights, falling via submission to Brent Weedman in the Season 6 tournament. Following that setback, “Superman” posted back-to-back wins before fighting Ibrahim Ahmed to a no-contest this past February.