Vila, ‘Ratinho,’ ‘Betao’ Booked for Bellator Bantamweight Bracket

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Three more names have been added to the list of confirmed participants for Bellator Fighting Championships’ sixth-season bantamweight tournament.

Sherdog.com confirmed Wednesday with sources close to the fighters that Luis “Betao” Nogueira, Alexis Vila and Rodrigo “Ratinho” Lima have all been added to the 135-pound bracket.

Five fighters have now been confirmed for the tournament, as the trio of newly announced participants joins Marcos Galvao and Masakatsu Ueda in the tournament field. Bellator’s sixth season is expected to begin in March and will also feature tournaments in the featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and middleweight divisions.

A winner in eight of his last nine outings, Nogueira fell to Ed West in the September quarterfinals of Bellator’s fifth-season bantamweight tournament. The Brazilian rebounded from the loss by taking out Zak Laird two weeks later at Bellator 53. Just 26 years old, Betao owns half of his career wins by knockout or submission.

Like Nogueira, Vila also participated in the Season 5 tournament, fighting his way to the finals with wins over Galvao and Joe Warren. The Cuban could not secure a title shot against reigning Bellator champion Zach Makovsky, however, as “The Exorcist” was handed the first loss of his career by Eduardo Dantas at the Nov. 26 season finale.

Lima has yet to taste defeat as a professional. The Brazilian owns five of his nine wins by submission and has only seen the judges’ scorecards twice since debuting in 2008. An eight-time veteran of Brazilian promotion Watch Out Combat Show, Lima last competed on Aug. 26, submitting Jeferson Hall with a guillotine choke.