Cole Konrad won the inaugural Bellator Heavyweight Championship on October 14, 2010, and defended it successfully once vs. Eric Prindle on May 25, 2012, before retiring undefeated to go into family agricultural commodities trading business. On December 14, 2012, Alexander Volkov beat the unheralded Richard Hale for the then-vacant Bellator heavyweight championship; on November 15, 2013, he lost it in his first title defense to Vitaly Minakov. Minakov defended it successfully once vs. Cheick Kongo on April 4, 2014. On May 14, 2016 Minakov was stripped of the Bellator heavyweight belt due to inactivity.
That’s the entire history of the heavyweight division in Bellator. It’s not much, but it just got a whole lot more exciting.
The Bellator MMA World Grand Prix 2018, an eight-man tournament, will be held across seven events next year, with the winner being declared the new heavyweight champion. The finals are tentatively determined for December of 2018. Fighters include four heavyweights and four light heavyweights:
•Fedor Emelianenko
•Frank Mir
•Matt Mitrione
•Roy Nelson
•Ryan Bader
•Quinton Jackson
•Muhammed Lawal
•Chael Sonnen
Fight order has not been determined but will be shortly.
This is going to be something that’s iconic for us, said Coker to John Morgan for MMAjunkie. Tournaments, traditionally, are kind of the way martial arts contests happen. Now we get to put eight iconic brand names in our sport together over a year, and then whoever wins will be crowned the heavyweight champion.
The tournament draw will be determined in the near future.
I think there are certain fights that people want to see, said Coker. Believe me, we’re going to have some amazing matchups in this tournament. These fights that we’re going to put together are something that the fans want to see. These are iconic names, big brands.
You can have a lot of fun playing Rich Chou:
•Fedor vs. Rampage
•Mir vs. Mitrione
•King Mo vs Big Country
•Bader vs. Chael
The events will all air on the Paramount Network, a rebranding of Spike, set to launch in January.
