Daniel James vs. Gokhan Saricam Among Multiple Additions to Bellator 297 Lineup

A heavyweight tilt pitting Daniel James against Gokhan Saricam is among several additions to the Bellator 297 bill.

The California-based promotion announced multiple bouts for the event, including the James-Saricam clash that is set for the evening’s main draw. Additionally, the following seven contests were confirmed for the prelims: Roman Faraldo vs. Bobby Nash at welterweight; Gadzhi Rabadanov vs. Pieter Buist at lightweight; Jaleel Willis vs. Ramazan Kuramagomedov at welterweight; Alex Polizzi vs. Karl Moore at light heavyweight; Archie Colgan vs. Emmanuel Sanchez at lightweight; Norbert Novenyi Jr. vs. Kamil Oniszczuk at middleweight and Timur Khizriev vs. Richie Smullen at featherweight.

Bellator 297 takes place on June 16 at Wintrust Arena in Chicago and is headlined by a light heavyweight title clash between Vadim Nemkov and Yoel Romero. In the co-main event, Sergio Pettis will defend the bantamweight strap against reigning featherweight king Patricio Freire. The evening’s main card airs on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, while prelims stream on the Bellator MMA YouTube channel, the Showtime Sports YouTube channel and Pluto TV at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT.

A Chicago native, James has been victorious in his last five professional outings — with all of those victories coming inside the distance. He garnered attention by scoring a second-round TKO of Tyrell Fortune at Bellator 288 and followed that effort with a third-round stoppage of Marcelo Golm in the Bellator 293 headliner on March 31.

Saricam, meanwhile, had a four-bout promotional winning streak snapped in his last outing, when he fell to Oleg Popov via unanimous decision at Bellator 291. The 32-year-old Turkey native owns an 8-2 professional mark overall.