Nearly nine years after their first meeting, Ryan Bader extracted some revenge and took a step toward regaining his light heavyweight title.
In the scheduled five-round opener of the Bellator light heavyweight grand prix, Bader and Lyoto Machida squared off in the main event of Bellator 256 Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. Bader was able to negate the first knockout loss of his career to Machida, which took place at UFC on FOX 4 in August 2012, with a dominant unanimous decision win.
Machida landed the first strikes of the fight with a pair of leg kicks to the current heavyweight champion, followed by a hard kick to the body. Bader looking for an opening charged in with an overhand right and ate another snapping kick to the midsection. Machida remaining calm and calculated, welting up the ribs of Bader. With less than a minute to go, Bader landed a hard right hand, followed by a short left. Machida answers with a high kick and a jumping knee which led to Bader looking for a takedown as the bell rang.
Both fighters traded kicks to start the second with Machida looking as relaxed as ever. Machida continued to strike first before Bader charged in and landed a big takedown with just under two minutes to go in the round. Short punches from Bader as Machida worked to get back to his feet, but to no avail. Continuous left hands from Bader land to cap off the stanza.
Machida scored with a head kick to start the third round, but Bader showed some more confidence on the feet before taking Machida down. On top, Bader dropped hammers on Machida, who started to wear the damage on his face heading into the championship rounds.
Smelling blood, Bader came out aggressive in the fourth landing heavy shots before taking Machida back down with over four minutes to work. He smothered Machida on the mat, landing short punches and elbows.
It was more of the same to kick off the fifth and final round as Bader quickly took Machida down, landing a hard body shot that changed the former UFC champ’s facial expression. Bader continued to use heavy top pressure and effective ground and pound. Machida landed a back elbow to open a cut on the forehead of his opponent, but the final 20 minutes of the fight belonged to Bader as he got back in the win column after losing his light heavyweight title to Vadim Nemkov in August at Bellator 244.
With the victory, Bader advances to the second round of the grand prix and will face the winner of the Bellator 257 matchup between Corey Anderson and Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov.
