An undisclosed injury has forced Rob Sinclair to pull out of the upcoming Bellator season nine lightweight tournament and taking his spot in the tournament will be Ricardo Tirloni.
Bellator confirmed the change to TheMMAReport.com on Friday afternoon and Tirloni will meet Rich Clementi in the opening round at Bellator 101 on September 27th.
Bellator 101 will take place from the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon on September 27th and tickets are currently on sale.
Tirloni (15-4) is a Bellator lightweight tournament veteran as he had been in the previous three tournaments. He was a semifinalist during the season seven tournament and was defeated by eventual tournament winner Dave Jansen by split decision.
He was already scheduled to be on the Bellator 101 card and was set to face Marcin Held in the feature bout of the preliminary card. Bellator will be announcing a new opponent for Held in the coming days.
The current Bellator 101 card is below:
Main Card: (Spike TV – 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT)
Marcus Davis (22-9) vs. Tiger Sarnavskiy (23-1) *
John Alessio (34-16) vs. Will Brooks (10-1) *
Martin Stapleton (12-1) vs. Saad Awad (14-5) *
Ricardo Tirloni (15-4) vs. Rich Clementi (45-22-1) *
Preliminary Card: (Spike.com – 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT)
Marcin Held (15-3) vs TBA
Joe Pacheco (6-0) vs. Tyson Jeffries (10-7)
Andy Uhrich (9-3) vs. Nathan Coy (12-4)
Jeremiah Riggs (7-7) vs. Peter Aspinwall (3-3)
Scott Thometz (6-2) vs. Brent Primus (2-0)
Austin Springer (3-0) vs. Brent Alvarez (1-1)
* – Lightweight Tournament Opening Round