Highlights! Ryan Bader puts on a wrestling clinic, dominates Cheick Kongo to retain heavyweight title - Bellator 280

Ryan Bader retained his heavyweight title earlier today (Fri., May 6, 2022) at Bellator 280 in Paris, France, and he made it look easy by absolutely dominating Cheick Kongo for 25 minutes in their rematch.

From the jump, Bader made it clear that he was going to impose his wrestling pedigree on the towering big man. And he did just that by scoring one takedown after another in every single round. And he did it so effortlessly because Kongo simply didn’t have an answer for it.

Once on the ground, Kongo looked like a fish out of water. When he did get up, he couldn’t find the space to pop off any of his offense. In fact, Bader was dominating the ground game so bad that the referee would at times step in and break up the action when Bader was still working.

And that was the story of the fight, it was rinse-and-repeat for Bader, who scored a unanimous decision win, putting his bitter rivalry against Kongo to rest once and for all. After the fight, Bader — who recently revealed he would no longer be dropping to light heavyweight — called for a rematch against Linton Vassell, who he knocked out Bellator 186.

Take a look at some of the action:

Bader improves to 7-2-1 and remains undefeated at 3-0 as a heavyweight.

For complete Bellator 280 play-by-play updates and results click here