Bellator president Scott Coker was happy to leave Saturday’s Bellator MMA vs. RIZIN event with a clean sweep, and says he would award his Most Valuable Player to the man who capped off the undefeated run.
In the main event, A.J. McKee defeated Roberto de Souza via unanimous decision to close out the 5-0 run for Bellator against RIZIN at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.
While Team Bellator also won decision victories for Patricio Pitbull and Kyoji Horiguchi as well, Juan Archuleta and Gadzhi Racbadanov, Coker was asked by reporters who he thought deserved the MVP award.
“I think I might have to give it to A.J. Coker told reporters after the event that McKee was his favorite participant. “I thought he was in some dangerous situations, he got out of them, he did what he had to do to win, and I think he had a great performance.
” De Souza is an extremely dangerous fighter. This performance would have him ranked number one -10 worldwide. It was extremely stressful for me to see because it made me think that he may’ve been in serious trouble.
McKee didn’t fear de Souza’s amazing ground game during the 15minute battle. He found himself in very difficult spots in the last round, before he got to the bell. This was his second consecutive win since he moved up to 155 in the featherweight division.
Coker was very impressed by RIZIN’s promotion and was happy to leave Japan with five wins.
“I always said my wish was to go 5-0 and I’m happy that my guys won,” Coker said. “To me, it was very competitive out there.
” It was difficult for our fighters, to travel to this country to fight in an entirely different system, environment and timeframe. They arrived 10 days before Christmas, saying that they would give up Christmas and travel to Japan earlier. And they have been practicing here since the last 10 days. It was a good job.
” I told them to not take these fighters lightly, because they are very skilled. .”
Source: https://www.mmafighting.com/2022/12/31/23533509/scott-coker-explains-why-a-j-mckee-was-mvp-of-5-0-sweep-at-bellator-mma-vs-rizin?rand=96749
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