Bellator MMA has plucked another pair of ranked contenders from the UFC by adding veteran light-heavyweight Ryan Bader and rising welterweight Lorenz Larkin to its roster in the past week.
Both fighters fought out their UFC contracts and were free agents.
Bader (22–5) has won seven of his last eight fights, including back-to-back knockouts of Ilir Latifi and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. The promotion has not made any announcements regarding when Bader might make his debut although a potential date could be June 24 when Bellator holds an anticipated pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden in New York. Bader already has his eyes on Bellator’s current 205-pound champion Phil Davis, a fighter Bader won a lacklustre split decision over when the two fought in the UFC more than two years ago.
Larkin (18–5, 1 NC) joined Bellator late last week and in doing so reunited with Bellator president Scott Coker. Larkin and Coker worked together for two years when Coker ran the defunct Strikeforce promotion.
“It’s been a long little journey to do the whole free agency thing, and I think the more and more the time went by, the more and more I kind of knew that I was probably going to move on to another place,” Larkin told The MMA Hour Monday.
Since dropping down to the 170-pound division from middleweight in 2015, Larkin has showed glimpses of a future world champion. The 30-year-old is 4-1 at welterweight with wins over Jorge Masvidal, Neil Magny, Santiago Ponzinibbio and John Howard with his only loss being a narrow split decision to Albert Tumenov. Larkin also holds a win over former UFC champ Robbie Lawler.
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“I had a deal on the table [from the UFC], and it just didn’t feel right,” Larkin added. “My whole reasoning for testing free agency was to see what I was worth and get somebody behind me. I want to feel like an asset to a promotion and I want to feel like the promotion wants to really drive me and really use me. I’ve made this point a lot of times that I’m ready to work. Anything you can use me for, let me know. I’m here. And it just wasn’t happening for me [in the UFC], so I don’t know if it was just the timing or, just, there was no interest in that. But that’s a big thing that I was focused on.”
While Bellator’s overall talent pool is much shallower than the UFC’s, its welterweight division stacks up rather nicely. Larkin joins the likes of Rory MacDonald, Michael “Venom’ Page, Paul Daley, Andrey Koreshkov and champion Douglas Lima at 170 pounds.
