The opening bout of tonight’s Bellator 149 main card on Spike TV will be a catchweight bout as Emmanuel Sanchez will look for his fifth win in the promotion when he meets Daniel Pineda.
For Pineda, this is his return to the promotion as he has previously competed twice in the promotion. He has been unable to get the victory in his previous appearances in Bellator and since his exit from the UFC, he has put together three straight victories.
All three of those victories have come by submission and Sanchez is well aware of the grappling abilities his opponent will have tonight. He is not afraid or intimidated about the abilities that Pineda will bring into the Bellator cage tonight at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. He is excited about the opportunity to show he is one of the best featherweights currently signed by the promotion.
“It’s just another veteran that I get to go out and take him out,” Sanchez said on yesterday’s edition of The MMA Report Podcast. “I am so excited. He has put out some great performance and obviously, he has finished all of his fights. I know what I am stepping up into. He is a very dangerous opponent, but I excited to go out there and prove why I am better than him. I have fifteen minutes to do it.”
“As you can say on paper, [he] is more experience with more fights,” he continued. “But I believe I have better fight IQ. Everything I do is tactical. In watching his fights and his preparations, he is good and skilled. But I have faced guys like him before. So I am excited. It’s always a new challenge and I believe I am better than him everywhere because I can put it all together.”