Bellator MMA’s “Summer Series” debut got off to a rough start on Tuesday with five fighters missing weight for their fights on their first tries on the scale. In the main event of Bellator 96, Muhammad Lawal (9-2 MMA, 1-1 BFC) looks to rebound from an upset loss to Emanuel Newton in his previous tournament outing when he meets Seth Petruzelli (14-7 MMA, 1-1 BFC) in the semifinals of the “Summer Series” four-man light heavyweight tourney. Both fighters were on target, with heavy favorite Lawal coming in at 205.2 pounds, while Petruzelli was 204.8. In the other 205-pound tournament semifinal fight, former Strikeforce champ Renato Sobral (37-10 MMA, 0-1 BFC), whose previous Bellator tourney run ended with a vicious KO loss to Mikhail Zayats , meets Jacob Noe (11-2 MMA, 2-1 BFC), whose nine-fight win streak also came to an end with a tourney defeat to Zayats. Noe came in 0.2 pounds over at 206.2, while “Babalu” was 204.4. Noe was given two hours to make the weight. In heavyweight tournament action, Vitaly Minakov (10-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) meets Ron Sparks (8-1 MMA, 3-1 BFC) on one side of the bracket. Sparks will have a decent size advantage at 264.6 pounds to Minakov’s 246
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