Bellator 66 gets Hawn-Woodard, Michel-Weedman lightweight-tourney semifinals
Following this past weekend's opening round, the season-six lightweight tournament now continues with a semifinal round at next month's Bellator 66 event in Ohio.
The final-four matchups include Rick Hawn (12-1 MMA, 4-1 BFC) vs. Lloyd Woodard (12-1 MMA, 2-1 BFC) and Thiago Michel (10-2 MMA, 1-0 BFC) vs. Brent Weedman (19-7-1 MMA, 5-2 BFC).
The two winners meet later this season to determine a tourney champion and the next lightweight title challenger.
Bellator 66 takes place April 20 at the I-X Center in Cleveland. The event's main card airs on MTV2 (and in high-definition on EPIX) while preliminary-card fights stream on Spike.com. Eddie Alvarez meets Shinya Aoki in the headliner.
The welterweight-tournament fights, as well as the semifinal round of the season-six middleweight tourney, all are part of the main card.
Hawn, a 2004 Olympic judoka, competed in the season-four welterweight tournament and posted a runner-up finish to Jay Hieron after suffering his first career loss (via split decision). For season six, Hawn decided to drop a weight class and topped Ricardo Tirloni with a first-round knockout this past weekend at Bellator 62.
He takes on Woodard, a season-four lightweight-tourney semifinalist who lost to eventual tourney winner and new champ Michael Chandler. Woodard, who's perhaps better known by his "Cupcake" nickname, was the talk of the weekend after he battered and then submitted tourney favorite Patricky "Pitbull" Freire in his season-six opening-round bout.
In the other bracket, Michel looks to build on his opening-round split-decision win over Rene Nazare at Bellator 62. It marked the first decision win for the Brazilian and Bellator newcomer, whose first nine victories came via knockout.
He takes on Weedman, whose first two Bellator tournaments took place at welterweight and ended with defeats to Hieron and Chris Lozano. With his drop to lightweight, Weedman submitted J.J. Ambrose with a Von Flue choke in his opening-round matchup this past weekend.
