What to Watch For: Bellator 163

This was the opportunity for which Phil Davis was gunning when he parted ways with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and signed with Bellator MMA. “Mr. Wonderful” will challenge unbeaten light heavyweight champion Liam McGeary for promotional gold at 205 pounds in the Bellator 163 headliner on Friday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The rest of the five-fight main card features a women’s featherweight clash pitting former Strikeforce champion Marloes Coenen against Talita Nogueira, a heavyweight battle matching Sergei Kharitonov with Javy Ayala and a pair of welterweight tilts, as Brennan Ward meets Saad Awad and Paul Daley faces Derek Anderson.Davis, 32, will enter the cage on the strength of a three-fight winning streak. The Alliance MMA rep last fought at Bellator 154 on May 14, when he captured a unanimous decision from Muhammed Lawal at the SAP Center in San Jose, California. Victories over Alexander Gustafsson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Glover Teixeira and Lyoto Machida anchor his resume. Davis was a four-time NCAA All-American wrestler at Penn State University, where he won a national championship in 2008. McGeary has been a revelation since he debuted with Bellator in 2013, going 8-0 with seven finishes. The 34-year-old Englishman last competed at Bellator 142 a little more than a year ago, when he submitted former UFC champion Tito Ortiz with an inverted triangle choke. McGeary holds the rank of brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under John Danaher and has put away five different opponents in 91 seconds or less. With the McGeary-Davis showdown as the centerpiece, here is what to watch for at Bellator 163:Violent Promises They tend not to fool around in the cage. As such, the encounter between Ward and Awad has violence written all over it. Ward saw his four-fight winning streak grind to a halt at Bellator 153 on April …

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