This past August, Chidi Njokuani missed weight and then got dominated to the tune of a first-round knockout loss in a Bellator MMA headliner. Resultantly, he’s moving up to middleweight.
Njokuani, 28, was riding a nine-fight unbeaten streak headed into his Bellator 182 headliner this past August against former promotional welterweight champion Andrey Koreshkov. The Las Vegas-based standup artist clocked in at 175 pounds for the contest, missing weight by five pounds. Koreshkov then promptly ended Njokuani’s four-year undefeated run, stopping him at 4:08 of Round 1 with strikes.
Kato, a Daidojuku expert, has won four of his last five, with three of those victories coming in the Bellator cage. The 35-year-old made a thrilling promotional debut in June 2015, blowing away Joe Schilling in one of the year’s best knockouts but his roll was halted five months later when he suffered a similarly brutal fate at the hands of Melvin Manhoef. After a 64-second knockout of Yuta Watanabe in Rizin Fighting Federation, the French-born Japanese fighter rebounded under the Bellator banner with wins over A.J. Matthews last October and Ralek Gracie in January.
Bellator 189 is headlined by a women’s featherweight title rematch between champion Julia Budd and Arlene Blencowe. Budd previously bested Australia’s “Angerfist” via majority decision 12 months ago at Bellator 182.