A weekend of MMA in tropical paradise begins on Friday night, as Bellator 235: USO Salute to the Troops will fill the seats at Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu. You can catch the entire card across the Paramount Network and DAZN. The main event is a heavyweight matchup featuring Josh Barnett, formerly the UFC Heavyweight Champion, and Ronny Markes, who has an illustrious UFC career on his resume. The co-headliner features Joey Davis and Chris Cisneros in a welterweight matchup. We have the complete fight card as well as Bellator betting insights on several of the top bouts.
2019 Bellator USO Salute the Troops Betting Preview
.@JoshLBarnett enters @BellatorMMA with two goals: Beat Ryan Bader for title, fight Fedor Emelianenko (via @dannyseguratv) #BellatorUSO https://t.co/vMAAOYuCWC
— MMA Junkie (@MMAjunkie) December 16, 2019
- When: December 20, 2019, 10pm ET
- Where: Neal S. Blaisdell Arena, Honolulu, Hawaii
- TV: Paramount Network
- Live Stream: DAZN
- Prelims: 8:45 PM ET
- Main Card: 10:00 PM ET
Main Card
- Josh Barnett vs Ronny Markes (Heavyweight)
- Joey Davis vs Chris Cisneros (Welterweight)
- Toby Miesch vs Erik Perez (Bantamweight)
- Alejandra Lara vs Veta Arteaga (Women’s Flyweight)
- Tywan Claxton vs Braydon Akeo (Featherweight)
Preliminary Card
- Ty Gwerder vs Joseph Creer (Middleweight)
- Cass Bell vs Pierre Daguzan (Bantamweight)
- Hunter Eweld vs Jonathan Pico (Welterweight)
- Tiani Valle vs Jamie Thorton (Flyweight)
Josh Barnett vs Ronny Markes
It’s Barnett’s first bout in MMA since 2016, as well as his Bellator debut. In Markes, Barnett gets an opponent who has tangled in the Professional Fighters League this year. However, he had issues at weigh-in ahead of the postseason, and so he missed out on championship cash. He will get paid for taking on Barnett, but the odds of him taking down the former UFC Heavyweight champ are slim indeed.
Markes would have to deliver a big bomb to register a miraculous knockout to deliver the win here. However, that is not the way that he fights. He has a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and he leans on his wrestling skills to bring fights to an end, whether through the delivery of submissions or just simple ground-and-pound. Barnett has superior skills to him in both of those areas.
Markes is also relatively new to the heavyweight division, having fought the majority of his career at light heavyweight or middleweight. He did beat Tony Lopez in a heavyweight bout in 2017, but Lopez was well into the downward arc of his career at that point.
Barnett is now 42 years old, so it will be interesting to see how his grappling looks after three years out of the cage. He has the grappling skills to get Markes down on the ground and finish him, but can he finish the job after that long gap?
Bellator USO Salute to the Troops Predictio: Barnett wins via submission
Erik Perez vs Toby Miesch
This features someone who actually left UFC on an upward trajectory in Perez. He lost to Bryan Caraway and then was out of the cage for over a year. Then he came back to beat Taylor Lapilus, Francisco Rivera and Felipe Arantes, the last win coming via split decision. UFC elected not to resign Perez despite his success, and so he went to Combate, where he beat D.J. Fuentes and Andres Ayala. He entered free agency again and signed with Bellator.
Miesch has an 11-7 MMA record. His recent fights include a defeat at the hands of Ricky Palacios on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series, a win over Edward Thommes at Bellator 212 and a loss on the cards to Eduardo Dantas, formerly a Bellator champion, at Bellator 215. He also has losses against Dustin Kimura, a former UFC veteran, and Austin Springer, another graduate of that Contender Series. Miesch is a durable fighter with versatile skills, but a win for him would be an upset.
Bellator USO Salute to the Troops Predictio: Perez wins via decision
