Darrion Caldwell celebrates after his victory at Bellator 195 (Photo/Bellator)Two former college wrestling stars -- Darrion Caldwell and Logan Storley -- will be featured in top-of-the-card bouts at Bellator 204, set for August 17 at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D.
It's the first Bellator MMA event to be held in the state of South Dakota.
Caldwell, current Bellator bantamweight (135-pound) champion, will move up a weight class to featherweight (145) in a non-title bout vs. Noad Lahat ... while Storley will take on A.J. Matthews in a welterweight (170-pound) co-feature.
Caldwell, who launched his pro MMA career in 2012 and signed with Bellator in Nov. 2013, is now 12-1 overall, and 9-1 in Bellator, while Lahat is 12-3 as a pro, and 3-1 in Bellator. Storley, a relative newcomer to MMA, having signed with Bellator just one year ago, is now 8-0 overall, and 3-0 in Bellator bouts. Matthews, a veteran of the cage who has fought professionally since 2007, brings a 9-7-0 overall record.
Both Caldwell and Storley built impressive amateur wrestling resumes before entering MMA.
Caldwell, a three-time state wrestling champ in his native New Jersey, made a name for himself at North Carolina State University, where he defeated defending champ Brent Metcalf of the University of Iowa in the 149-pound finals, 11-6, at the 2009 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in what the late historian Jay Hammond declared to be one of the three biggest upsets in NCAA finals history.
Storley, a six-time South Dakota state champ from Webster, S.D., hometown to the one and only Brock Lesnar. Like Lesnar, Storley headed east to the University of Minnesota, where he was a four-time NCAA All-American.
The entire main card of Bellator 204 -- including the bouts featuring Caldwell and Storley -- will be televised live and free on Paramount Network at 8 p.m. CT, while preliminary action will stream on Bellator.com and globally on the Bellator Mobile App. Additional bouts will be announced in coming weeks.
Tickets for Bellator 204 go on sale Thursday, June 28 at 10 a.m. on ticketmaster.com and the Pentagon box office.
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now