It didn't take long for new
Bellator
MMA signee
Valerie
Letourneau to get her first booking.
The former
Ultimate Fighting Championship title challenger will make her
Bellator debut at
Bellator 181 on July 14, facing American
Emily
Ducote in a flyweight contest. The event eminates from the
WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma,
headlined by a rematch between lightweights “Pitbull”
Patricky
Freire and
Derek
Campos.
Letourneau confirmed the bout during an appearance on “The MMA
Hour” with Ariel Helwani on Monday.
The 34-year-old Letourneau signed with Bellator in late April,
joining the company's flyweight division after a tumultuous UFC run
where she was caught between weight classes. The American Top Team
rep started her Octagon tenure at 135 pounds, before cutting down
to strawweight and eventually challenging champion Joanna
Jedrzejczyk for the crown at UFC 193 in November 2015. However,
while “Trouble” took Jedrzejczyj the 25-minute distance, her
unanimous decision defeat started a three-fight slide, including a
one-sided knockout loss to Joanne
Calderwood in the UFC's first-ever women's flyweight bout --
put together to accommodate Letourneau's weight cutting issues –
and then missing the 115-pound mark and losing a questionable
unanimous decision to Viviane
Pereira at UFC 206 in Toronto last December.
Ducote, 23, made her Bellator MMA last July, tapping favored
Brazilian Bruna
Vargas in an upset. “Gordinha” has posted a 3-1 mark inside of
Bellator, rebounding from a loss to divisional standout Ilima-Lei
Macfarlane this past December by choking out Katy
Collins in the first round at Bellator 174 in
March.
