Bellator 61: HW final postponed again

Tonight's Bellator 61 card was supposed to be headlined by the Season 5 heavyweight tournament final between Eric "Ginger Giant" Prindle and Thiago Santos, but was called off yesterday when Prindle suddenly fell ill and apparently nearly puked on commentators Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith.  No, we wasn't getting an early start on St. Paddy's Day, the rumor is it was the ol' weight-cut flu.  I'd think a good plan moving forward would be to lose some weight so he doesn't have to cut to make 265, but that's just me.

Anyway, you may recall this fight was already a do-over after their first meeting at Bellator 59 ended in a no contest when Santos decided to boot Prindle squaw in the nuts (check out the gif HERE, if you don't mind also seeing a closeup of said nuts).  Not to worry though, the rematch has only been pushed back one week to Bellator 62.

That leaves the Season 6 middleweight quarterfinals to carry the main card, featuring mostly fresh blood.  Only three fighters return from Season 5: finalist Vitor Vianna and semifinalist Brian Rogers, both of whom lost to Alexander Shlemenko (who's still waiting for his shot at Hector Lombard); and quarterfinalist Victor O'Donnell, who was TKO'd by Rogers.  Filling out the field are: one-and-done UFC'er Maiquel "Psycho" Falcao; former M-1 light heavyweight champ Vyacheslav Vasilevsky; Giva Santana, who boasts enough first-round armbar wins (12!) to make Ronda Rousey totally jealous; smelly Frenchman Norman Paraisy; and undefeated decision machine Bruno Santos.  Basically the usual bunch of relatively unknown but generally solid fighters that we've come to expect from Bellator.  The unaired prelims star the typical cast of nobodies, with perhaps the exception of TUF 7 and "Daisy of Love" contestant Jeremiah Riggs.

The fun starts with the undercard stream on Spike.com starting at 7PM ET, and the main card kicks off on MTV2 at 8PM.  But it doesn't air up here in Canuckistan until late tomorrow night, so no spoilers, eh.

MAIN CARD - Season 6 Middleweight Quarterfinals:
Maiquel "Big Rig" Falcao (28-4-1) vs. Norman Paraisy (10-1-2)
Vitor Vianna (12-2-1) vs. Brian "The Predator" Rogers (8-3)
Vyacheslav "The Crushin Russian" Vasilevsky (15-1) vs. Victor O'Donnell (11-3)
Giva "The Arm Collector" Santana (17-1) vs. Bruno "Carioca" Santos (12-0)

PRELIMS:
Brent Taylor vs. Josh Quayhagen
Trey Houston vs. Jeremiah Riggs
Derrick Krantz vs. Eric Scallan
Jeremy Myers vs. Jason Sampson

Source: http://www.fightlinker.com/bellator-61-hw-final-postponed-again

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