Bellator middleweight champion Brandon Halsey missed weight yesterday for his scheduled title defense tonight against Kendall Grove in the main event of Bellator 137.
Following the weigh-ins yesterday, Bellator announced that the fight between Halsey and Grove would continue as scheduled. However, if Halsey wins tonight, he will vacate the title. If Grove wins, he will become the champion.
The man that most people consider the next title challenger is Tamdan McCrory. He is 2-0 in Bellator and both of his wins have come by stoppage in the first round. When asked about the situation involving the Bellator middleweight title, McCrory called it an unfortunate situation.
“It’s unfortunate obviously because you do not want to fight for the belt that got vacated,” McCrory told The MMA Report. “You want to beat the champion. You want to beat them under the rules. Beat them fair and square. It’s an unfortunate set of events. Obviously, Kendall Grove still has the opportunity to become the champion should he beat him but if he doesn’t, it becomes vacated. It’s just a cluster and it’s unfortunate. No one likes to deal with situations like this.”
Publicly, Bellator has not stated who will be next for a title shot. McCrory believes he will be next for a title shot and will be watching tonight to see who me may be facing next.
“I think we have been saying that for awhile now,” he said. “Now it’s just who is it going to be. Originally, I was looking at these two guys and see which one I may be fighting. Now, I do not know who I would be fighting if I am fighting for the title. If Grove wins, than great that is who I am fighting, but if Halsey wins, who am I going to fight? Are they going to put him back up there? Act like it never happen or is it going to be pick another guy out of a hat and square them up against me. At the end of the day, I just got to see how things shake out and it’s a crazy game. Things can happen at any time. MMA news, it’s something different every day.”
When it comes to the fight tonight, McCrory sees this as a great opportunity for Grove and he needs to take advantage. Obviously, Halsey was struggling with his weight cut and that could have an effect in the cage tonight. McCrory does not have a prediction on the fight and he only hopes it’s a great fight for the fans watching on Spike TV.
“Hopefully it will be a good fight for the fans. If it’s a bad fight, it’s only going to make my stock go up because none of my fights are lackluster. He will see how it goes tonight and we will take it as it comes.”