Sokoudjou & Thompson Win Bellator MMA Debuts

Sokoudjou and James Thompson both earned stoppage victories in their respective debuts at Bellator 121 on Friday night. Ex-Pride/UFC fighter Sokoudjou, who holds victories over Little Nog and Ricardo Arona from his Pride days, and Pride heavyweight vet James "The Colossus" Thompson both won their debut Bellator matches at last night€™s Bellator 121, the company€™s first event since it€™s inaugural PPV in May. The two vets were touted as big signings by Bellator MMA, despite Sokoudjou having lost two straight fights heading into the event. Matched up with Terry "The Punisher" Davinney, Sokoudjou controlled for most of the opening stanza but was taken down briefly. Davinney was unable to make much of the takedown, however, which led to Sokoudjou reversing and landing some solid shots. Davinney leaned forward and gave up his neck before getting free, only to give it up again later in the sequence to avoid ground and pound, and tapped out with 44 seconds remaining in the round. For his part, Davinney was clearly outmatched, coming into the fight off two straight losses to Ray Lopez and Travis Wiuff. Thompson, meanwhile, who was 19-14 (1) entering the night and on a three fight win streak, met up with Eric "The American Soldier" Prindle (coming off two straight losses) and immediately took the big man to the ground with an impressive single leg takedown. Warned twice about shots to the back of the head, Thompson unloaded some heavy knees to the body before returning to short head shots, earning a TKO victory from unanswered strikes. Prindle protested the shots to the back of the head after the fight, but had no answer whatsoever for Colossus, who improves to a solid 20 wins. After the fight, Thompson, who has had his share of ups and downs over the years, publicly thanked Bellator MMA CEO Bjorn Rebney for taking a chance on him, and perhaps even christened a new nickname for himself, saying "Before everyone thought I was a meathead, and they were only half right, because you know I am a bit of a meathead, but I've advanced, I've evolved, I am now the Thinking Meathead!" Thompson certainly did his best to entertain on the mic, continuing on from his meathead comments and thanking Bjorn to announce he wanted into the heavyweight tournament, saying he wasn't just in Bellator to up his numbers and that he would fight anyone - including former UFC heavyweight Cheick Kongo, whom he referred to as the "nutcracker" - a shot at Kongo's reputation for low blows. A fair amount of time was then given to lamenting testicles damaged at the hands of Kongo, I kid you not. He went as far as saying he should get the match-up with Kongo based on the "missing testicle" of a teammate who could no longer have kids. All joking aside, Thompson vs. Kongo is a match that a lot of fans would tune in for. Earlier in the night, Egidijus Valavicius won a split decision in a spirited fight to enter himself into the semifinals of the Bellator Summer Series Light Heavyweight tournament. In the final fight of the night, Brazilian Philipe Lins choked out American Austin Heidlage to earn his way to the semifinals as well. This was something of a questionable headliner, given that Thompson/Prindle and Soukoudjou were the names more heavily promoted leading into the event, but is likely a result of Bellator wanting to focus on its tournament format. Solution: get those names into future tournaments. On the undercard, Jon Jones' teammate Bubba McDaniel, a former UFC fighter who went 1-2 for the organization after appearing on The Ultimate Fighter 17, picked up his first win in over a year in a unanimous decision over Matt Jones. Main card results: LHW Philipe Lins defeated Austin Heidlage via rear-naked choke (Round 1 - 2:45) HW James Thompson defeated Eric Prindle via TKO (Round 1 - 1:55) LHW Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou defeated Terry Davinney via rear-naked choke (Round 1 - 4:16) LHW Egidijus Valavicius defeated Carlos Eduardo via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)