Falcao Confirmed for Bellator Season 6 Middleweight Tournament
Onetime UFC talent
Maiquel Falcao will make his stateside return this spring when
he takes part in Bellator
Fighting Championships’ sixth-season middleweight
tournament.
Event sources Wednesday confirmed to Sherdog.com that Falcao, who signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator last October, will be one in the eight-man tourney at 185 pounds. The only other participant thus far confirmed for the middleweight bracket is Season 5 semifinalist Brian Rogers, but familiar faces such as Brett Cooper and Vitor Vianna are also rumored to return, along with newcomers like Vyacheslav Vasilevsky and Giva Santana.
Airing live Friday nights on MTV2, Bellator’s sixth season is
expected to kick off March 2 at a location to be announced. No
start date has been announced for the middleweight tournament.
Falcao, 30, is best known for a one-and-done UFC stint which saw him outpoint Gerald Harris in a controversial November 2010 decision. Subsequently scheduled for and pulled from multiple bouts, the Chute Boxe representative was ultimately released by the promotion last May due to circumstances stemming from a 2002 assault charge in his homeland.
The Brazilian slugger has gone 2-1 with a pair of first-round knockouts since his Octagon ouster, but scarier than that loss was the turn his story took in late November. On Nov. 20, Falcao was hospitalized in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, after suffering an apparent heart attack. However, the fighter later denied the diagnosis.
“I’ve had some health problems caused by excessive training,” he wrote on Facebook. “This generated several rumors, but none of them is true. What actually happened was too much training, not enough rest.”
Falcao’s Bellator debut will mark his first action since Oct. 8, when he recorded a 75-second stoppage of Douglas del Rio at a local Brazilian event.
Event sources Wednesday confirmed to Sherdog.com that Falcao, who signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator last October, will be one in the eight-man tourney at 185 pounds. The only other participant thus far confirmed for the middleweight bracket is Season 5 semifinalist Brian Rogers, but familiar faces such as Brett Cooper and Vitor Vianna are also rumored to return, along with newcomers like Vyacheslav Vasilevsky and Giva Santana.
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Falcao, 30, is best known for a one-and-done UFC stint which saw him outpoint Gerald Harris in a controversial November 2010 decision. Subsequently scheduled for and pulled from multiple bouts, the Chute Boxe representative was ultimately released by the promotion last May due to circumstances stemming from a 2002 assault charge in his homeland.
The Brazilian slugger has gone 2-1 with a pair of first-round knockouts since his Octagon ouster, but scarier than that loss was the turn his story took in late November. On Nov. 20, Falcao was hospitalized in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, after suffering an apparent heart attack. However, the fighter later denied the diagnosis.
“I’ve had some health problems caused by excessive training,” he wrote on Facebook. “This generated several rumors, but none of them is true. What actually happened was too much training, not enough rest.”
Falcao’s Bellator debut will mark his first action since Oct. 8, when he recorded a 75-second stoppage of Douglas del Rio at a local Brazilian event.
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