Bellator has booked a massive title fight for their bantamweight division. The promotion took to the Morning Kombat show today to announce that they had finalized a bantamweight title fight between Sergio Pettis (21-5) and Kyoji Horiguchi (29-3) for December 3rd.
This matchup will pair the Bellator champion (Pettis) against the RIZIN champion (Horiguchi). Many will recall that Horiguchi was the Bellator bantamweight champion as well when he defeated Darrion Caldwell back in 2019.
At that time, Horiguchi was already the RIZIN champion and the win over Caldwell gave him two championships. The two promotions had agreed to do a co-promotion with Horiguchi holding both titles.
However, after Horiguchi got hurt, Bellator moved on with crowning a new bantamweight champion. Juan Archuleta became the champion before ultimately losing the Bellator title to Sergio Pettis earlier this year.
Horiguchi had lost the RIZIN championship in his last fight of 2019. He returned in December of 2020 and avenged that loss while winning back that title. Now, he’s going to try and win back the Bellator title that he never lost.
Sergio Pettis has really taken off after leaving the UFC. Pettis was always touted for his skill and potential but never reached the top of the mountain in the UFC. That said, he was still able to defeat some of the best inside the octagon.
After becoming a free agent, Bellator signed Pettis to an exclusive deal. Since joining the promotion, he’s gone 3-0. The highlight of that stretch came at Bellator 258 when he took on Juan Archuleta for the bantamweight championship.
The two had a good fight, but Pettis was getting the better of things throughout. Ultimately, Pettis scored a decision win to become bantamweight champion. Now, he’s going to have his chance to defeat Horiguchi who never lost his title with Bellator.
This post was published on 2021-10-20 15:30
