The next Bellator lightweight tournament begins on October 19th

The Bellator Fighting Championships will start it’s seventh season season at the end of September and the organization has announced when the next lightweight tournament will begin.

The quarterfinals of the season seven lightweight tournament will take place on October 19th at Bellator 77 and will take place from The Reading Eagle Theater at The Sovereign Center in Reading, Pennsylvania.

The quarterfinal bouts are Rich Clementi vs. Tiger Sarnavskiy, Ricardo Tirloni vs. Rene Nazare, Marcin Held vs. Murad Machaev and Dave Jansen vs. Magomed Saadulaev.

Tickets are currently on sale at the VF Outlet Box Office at the Sovereign Center, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 800-745-3000 or at Ticketmaster.com, Sovereigncenter.com and Bellator.com.

The main event for the card will be the quarterfinal bout between MMA veteran Rich Clementi and Sarnavskiy. Sarnavskiy is seen as the number one prospect in the lightweight division and has finished nine of his last ten opponents. He has been preparing himself for this tournament and the challenges it will bring.

“The Bellator Tournament will be a difficult test for me,” Sarnavskiy said. “I will train and prepare myself the best I can. I have a huge responsibility to my coach, my manager, my fans and my country. I won’t disappoint them and I want to show them a spectacular performance.”

Clementi has over sixty career mixed martial arts bout and made his return to Bellator earlier this year with a win over Derek Campos. The MMA veteran admits that he hasn’t felt this good in a long time and is excited for this opportunity.

“I don’t think I’ve felt this good in a long time and I’m incredibly excited to get going and into this tournament,” Clementi said. “I know Sarnavskiy is coming into this tournament as one of the favorites, but I love the challenge, and I want to start to this tournament off with a bang. Everyone is going to see the Rich Clementi they are used to seeing, and Sarnavskiy is in for a rude awaking on October 19.”

The main card of Bellator 77 will be shown live on MTV2 and in commercial free high definition on EPIX2, with the preliminary card being shown on Spike.com.

Stay tuned to TheMMAReport.com for updates on this upcoming fight card.