Lombard the face of Bellator?
By Robert Przybylo
BPrzybylo@opubco.com
I remember going out to lunch with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney two months ago in preparation for the Bellator event at OU’s Lloyd Noble Center.
He was talking about some of the fighters in Bellator, and he kept coming back to two names: Jorge Masvidal and Hector Lombard.
Masvidal was taken out in the most unique submission ever by Toby Imada, but Lombard has been everything that was advertised.
And after seeing him in person, the Boneman is a believer, too.
He’s a physical specimen to behold, I tells ya. Built like a tank but still able to move around and not let all that muscle tighten him up.
Lombard takes on UCO product Jared Hess tomorrow night at Bellator XII in Florida for the middleweight championship and a shot at $175,000.
Hess compared Lombard to a mini-Mike Tyson. Pretty appropriate in that Lombard is kinda small-ish for his weight class but can intimidate his opponents and end it early and end it quickly.
His KO of Virgil Lozano is still the sight I remember most from LNC show. The crowd was still packed, and he became an instant favorite.
Though I believe Lombard is being groomed to be the “face of Bellator,” I do not for one second think there’ll be any fishiness if Lombard and Hess go to a decision.
At 31, the time is now for Lombard. He knows it. He’s fought in PRIDE and was supposed to fight in the UFC in the last couple of years. But for whatever reason, he’s in Bellator.
He’s got great power, but I wonder what will happen if Hess can weather that early storm and take him into deep waters? Does Lombard have the stamina? So far he hasn’t needed it. Wish I could be in Florida for this one.
As for Hess? Well, I promised something in today’s paper, so here ya go. Check out the corresponding tidbits that go with it as well, if you wouldn’t mind.
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I won’t go out of my way to watch it but Wladimir Klitschko and Ruslan Chagaev are fighting for the heavyweight boxing championship Saturday night.
Wlad was originially scheduled to take on David Haye (which I thought would have been a fun fight), but Haye pulled out.
I’ve never seen Chagaev fight, so who knows, maybe I’ll be surprised?
Excellent point being made by boxing pundits that the Floyd Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez fight was selling, hmm, let’s say “not like hot cakes.”
A July fight is tough to pull off in the Las Vegas heat and apparently, it was not doing so well.
Doesn’t make me doubt Mayweather’s rib injury, but it would give credence to him not trying to hide it and fight anyway.
A proposed September date would help ticket sales and would have that added boost as being the weekend of Mexico’s Independence Day. A spot normally reserved for Oscar de La Hoya for the last decade, JMM would try to take the mantle this year.
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And photographer John Clanton was able to help me out and produce a video of Hess when we watched him train last week. So here ya go.
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