When Bellator MMA announced earlier this year that they were transitioning from a weekly, tournament-based format in favor of scheduled, "tentpole" Saturday night events, fans eagerly waited to see what those matchups would look like. Now, we have word of the first fight of 2015, and it's a doozy.
Going down in Temcula, CA's Pechange Resort & Casino on January 16, Bellator 132 will pit featherweights Daniel Straus (23-5) against Patricio "Pitbull" Friere (22-2).
Pitbull is the one who will be mounting the title defense, having unanimously defeated then-champ Pat Curran this September. In an interesting wrinkle, Curran himself only had the belt after wresting it away from Straus in a bout last March. With one fighter eager to reclaim the taste of the top and another not inclined to relinquish it, you know the stakes of Bellator 132 won't get any higher.
Straus is looking toward this fight as a way to rebound from a poor series of events the last two years. In the spring of 2013 he was arrested in Florida on drug charges, and in 2014 he lost that fihgt to Curran via a miracle late-round submission.
A promotional poster for Bellator 132 was released on Twitter:
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