Ben Askren will be returning to the Bellator cage at the beginning of 2013 and will be defending the Bellator welterweight title against Karl Amoussou, who won the season six welterweight tournament.
The fight will headline the second Bellator card on 2013, which will take place on January 24th at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
Askren (10-0) became the Bellator welterweight champion in 2010 by defeating Lyman Good at Bellator 33 after winning the season two welterweight tournament.
Since becoming the champion, he has gone 3-0 with two of those fights being title defenses against Jay Hieron and Douglas Lima.
Amoussou (16-4-2) won the season six welterweight tournament earlier this year by submitting Bryan Baker at Bellator 72 and is currently on a four fight winning streak. After winning the tournament, Amoussou told TheMMAReport.com that he is ready to defeat the “lay and prayer.”
“He is going to try and lay and pray, but he is not going to do it, he is going to sleep,” Amoussou said. “What can Askren to do me actually? He can not knock me out. There is no point where he can knock me out. He can not punch. He can not kick. He can not knock me out. He can not submit me. The only thing can maybe do is lay and pray, that’s it.”
Along with announcing the main event for the January 24th card, Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney announced on Tuesday that aso appearing on the fight card will be Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, Douglas Lima and Ben Saunders.