Cheick Kongo is set to welcome fellow former UFC heavyweight Timothy Johnson to Bellator MMA this October, as the pair face off at Bellator 208 in Long Island.
Recently signed heavyweight Timothy Johnson has his Bellator debut date set. Per an initial report by ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Johnson will meet longtime heavyweight stalwart Cheick Kongo at Bellator 208 this October. The fight will come in the second of back-to-back cards in the same weekend, both topped by bouts in Bellator’s World Heavyweight Grand Prix.
Johnson (12–4) went 4-3 with the UFC before signing with Bellator MMA earlier this year. He’s coming off a win over Marcelo Golm in his final UFC bout. The thirty-three year old feels like a spring chicken in the heavyweight ranks, where many of the top fighters are pushing forty or past it. That includes Johnson’s debut opponent Cheick Kongo (28–10–2), who is forty-three himself.
Kongo is currently on the best run of his long career, with six straight wins under the Bellator banner. He made the switch to the Viacom-backed promotion way back in 2013, and is now 10-2 in the organization. Though he came up short in his lone title shot (against Vitaly Minakov at Bellator 115), Kongo has fought a who’s who of Bellator heavyweights, and owns wins over Alexander Volkov (now a top contender in the UFC, and a former Bellator heavyweight champ himself), Mark Godbeer (who also moved over the the UFC), Javy Ayala, Augusto Sakai, and others.
Bellator 208 takes place October 13 at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. Chael Sonnen faces Fedor Emelianenko in the main event, in one of the semi-final bouts from the Bellator World Heavyweight Grand Prix.
