Bellator 122 Picks & Predictions - Phil Baroni On Your Television In 2014 And It's Not A Postmortem Steroid Investigation

In what seemingly happened overnight, Bellator has become the land of misfit fighters with Melvin Manhoef, Paul Daley, Cheick Kongo, Bobby Lashley, Rampage Jackson, Tito Ortiz, Karo Parisyan, and Phil Baroni. When you see UFC saturating the market with events every weekend and promoting every single fight as the greatest test [insert champion] has ever faced, why try to compete on that level? Fuck it, just throw a bunch of crazy people on basic cable with a live mic and see what happens. God willing one day we’ll see Rampage vs Kimbo Slice. 

Kelly Anundson vs. Philipe Lins   
2014 Summer Series Light Heavyweight Tournament Semifinal
Both semifinal fights are on this show, but this one is only on spike.com, ensuring there is room on your television for “The Poet” Philip Baroni. Oh Scott Coker, how I’ve missed you in my life. 

Anundson has a wrestling base and solid ground and pound. Lins is not only a good striker, but he’s he dangerous on the ground as well. He’s won both of his fights in Bellator via first round rear naked choke. On top of that, he’s an undefeated Nova Uniao fighter, and I’ll stop picking fighters from that camp when they stop absolutely scaring the shit out of me.  Lins by Violence.

Liam McGeary vs. Egidijus Valavicius  
2014 Summer Series Light Heavyweight Tournament Semifinal  

McGeary is an undefeated and promising light heavyweight, meaning he’ll be on a Fight Pass card in London by February. All 7 of his wins are finishes, 5 of them in the first round. He's had 4 fights in Bellator and spent less than 4 minutes combined in the cage. 

Vala has 30 more fights and heavy hands. McGeary is training with Renzo Gracie’s camp, so he won’t rely on standing and banging, bro, and looking to land a big ole Christmas ham to finish the fight. He’ll fight past the first round for the first time in Bellator, but still come away with the win. McGeary by TKO.

Phil Baroni vs. Karo Parisyan 
Season 10 Pound for Pound Champion of My Heart Forever and Always

Finally, freakshow fights are back on our TVs. Thank you Bellator for filling the Strikeforce shaped hole in my heart. Baroni is 38 years old, hasn’t had back to back wins since George W. Bush was still president, and has 2 total wins since 2009. He had one glorious knockout against Dave Menne in 2002 and a whole lot of fighting in Japan where drug tests are…lenient. Parisyan was the next big thing at 170 until his career was derailed by a combination of painkillers and crazy, but it appears he’s finally started to get back on the right track after losses in promotions like Amazon Forest Combat and JEG MMA. I could have just made both of those names up and you’d never know the difference. 

I'll know it's finally time for me to leave this mortal coil when I get sick of watching this gif

In a fair and beautiful world, Karo would be The Poet’s stepping stone to a Couture-esque late career title run. But most likely Baroni comes in hot, vowing to turn his career around and finally make a name for himself in front of a whole new audience, then gets Real Tired a minute in, judo thrown, and submitted. The Mark Coleman Experience. 

Brett Cooper vs. Brandon Halsey 
Season 10 Middleweight Tournament Final

If Cooper wins, he earns the chance to score a hat trick with a possible third loss to Middleweight Champ Alexander Shlemenko. When researching this fight, all of Halsey's accolades and accomplishments were for collegiate wrestling. I don’t know about you, but nothing gets me FUCKIN PUMPED like a guy whose standout statistic is being 22nd all time in wins at Cal State. Whoopdee shit. 

Cooper is more well rounded and has 13 KO’s to his name. God willing he’ll get his 14th here instead of getting ‘rassled for 15 minutes. 

Andrey Koreshkov vs. Adam McDonough 
Season 10 Welterweight Tournament Final

Koreshkov is 16-1, with the 1 being from Ben Askren. His two wins in this tourney lasted for a combined 2 minutes, with his last win being via flying knee at Bellator 118.

I don’t love much in this world, but I fucking love a grown ass man serving as the swift hand of a benevolent god and delivering divine judgement through the air on the wings of an angel and ramming his kneecap so far into his opponent’s brain it sends them to St. Peter, who tells them it's not yet their time, and they're pulled away from the light by Dan Miragliotta. 

Indians believed it was his soul escaping from his body

McDonough is 11-0, and his record involves one of my other favorite phrases in the English language: spinning back-kick and punches. 9 of his 11 wins are finishes, and holy shit am I excited for this fight. I give Koreshkov the edge just because of the experience factor, but as long as someone gets a couple years of elementary school knocked out of their brains I’ll be happy. Because isn’t that really what being an MMA fan is all about?