Bellator 200 Highlights: Mousasi wins gold, Rickels gets Thanos’d by MVP

It may not have been available to enjoy live for North American fans, but Bellator 200 did end up delivering in spades for England.

From the Phil Davis head kick KO in the opening main card contest to MMA legend Gegard Mousasi winning his first major title in nearly 8 years, Londoners got quite the treat.

And while the stars in attendance for this show may have included Chris Pratt, 50 Cent, Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) the cast of Geordie Shore — to support Aaron Chalmers in his Bellator debut — the true star of the evening was none other than Michael ‘Venom’ Page.

Page improved to a perfect 13-0 (9-0 under the Bellator banner) with a performance that is getting him nearly as much press as his devastating flying knee KO of Evangelista Santos back in the Summer of 2016.

Page clowned his opponent, former lightweight title challenger David Rickels, before making him quit in the second round by exploding his face with a savage right hand.

You read that right, Rickels would wave off the fight, thus forcing the referee to award Page with the victory by way of TKO due to a verbal submission — something you rarely see in MMA. After the contest, Page would proceed to grab the Infinity Gauntlet and place it on his hand as the crowd roared in approval.

Page’s brand of striking, showmanship and trash talk is everything that Bellator could ask for in a homegrown talent; one that they’ve brought up the right way but one they can no longer shy away from placing in the main event.

Also on the card, the aforementioned reality star, Aaron Chalmers, would make quick work of his opponent with a guillotine choke in under two minutes of the opening round. The man Chalmers defeated, Ash Griffiths, came into the contest with a record of 4-6. Cornwall’s Kate Jackson bounced back nicely from a loss to former UFC title challenger, Valerie Letourneau, by derailing the Anastasia Yankova “hype train” by way of pure dominance. Jackson, a former Ultimate Fighter cast member, now moves to 10-3-1 (2-1 in Bellator) after her unanimous decision victory over a flyweight competitor in Letourneau who had been touted as a future title challenger in Yankova.

Speaking of the flyweight championship, Bellator returns on June 29th with a main event between Ilima Lei-Macfarlane and Alejandra Lara. This will be Ilima Lei’s first defense of her title and it will go down inside of the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California.