Weight Class: Heavyweight Bellator is wisely opening its season premiere card with what amounts to an MMA squash match, as pro-wrestler turned mixed martial artist (while still wrestling for TNA, at least as long as the promotion is still in business) Bobby Lashley takes on Josh Burns. Who? Josh Burns (8-7), whose biggest claim to fame at the moment is being signed to be Lashley's first victim in Bellator. Make no mistake: Bellator is protecting an investment here. That doesn't mean we couldn't see a huge upset, it's just very, very unlikely. Lashley (10-2) is decent enough against run of the mill competition, we're just yet to see anything from him to indicate her can preform at a higher level. However, Bellator's heavyweight division basically having about three or four top guys, you could actually see him getting a title shot with a win or two. After all, Joey Beltran was gifted a title shot with just a single win despite having been on a horrible stretch just before it, where he won just two of ten fights. Welcome to the new Bellator. It's interesting to note that Burns has arguably faced better competition over his career than Lashley - he has just lost to most of the decent names on his record, and doesn't have a single win in Bellator despite fighting for the promotion several times. Expect Lashley to control, take the fight to the ground, and submit Burns within the first or second round. Expect him then to be given another fight and, depending on how he looks, be fast tracked to a title shot, depending on how things go for Cheick Kongo.
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
