Longterm MMA veteran Kendall Grove has a new opponent for Bellator 174 this weekend as three-time UFC fighter Mike Rhodes steps in on extremely short notice to fill in for original opponent Chris Honeycutt.
Bellator 174 takes place on Friday, March 3, 2017 from the WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The headline bout will see Julia Budd take on Marloes Coenen to see who will become the first ever Bellator women’s featherweight champion.
Bellator would remove the NCAA Division I All-American from the event due to an unspecified injury but would swiftly replace him with Rhodes shortly after.
This is the latest in a string of bad luck for the promotion as they were forced to cancel Bellator 172‘s main event hours before they went live due to Matt Mitrione falling ill with kidney stones before facing Fedor Emelianenko. Also the main event of Bellator 173 would change three times in the lead up to the show in Belfast due to injuries and visa issues.
Rhodes will make his Bellator debut against Groves after winning all four of his fights since leaving the UFC in December 2014. The Roufusport product last fought at Victory FC 51 in June last year where he won the promotion’s middleweight title with a second-round submission of Rakim Cleveland.
Grove meanwhile, looks to bounce back from a defeat to former Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko in has last outing at Bellator 162. Before that, the Hawaiian had enjoyed relative success in the promotion and at the age of 34, is looking to put together one more run at the title.
Despite both men having fought in the UFC, this meeting will be their first encounter inside the cage with one another.
