5 Reasons to watch Bellator 174, including a long-awaited inaugural women's featherweight title fight

Bellator has been waiting for almost a year to crown its first women’s featherweight champion. On Friday, the promotion finally will do it when Julia Budd and Marloes Coenen meet in Bellator 174’s main event.

Budd and Coenen initially were set to fight for the title at Bellator 155 in May 2016, but an injury forced Budd from the contest. Alexis Dufresne replaced her on the card, stepping in to face Coenen in a non-title bout on less than two weeks’ notice. Dufresne shocked Coenen, Bellator and the majority of the MMA world, overcoming long odds to win the fight with a first-round triangle-armbar.

Despite that loss, Coenen, who held the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title between October 2010 and July 2011, gets the chance to add a second belt to her resume against Budd, whose two losses came under the Strikeforce banner to former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and current champ Amanda Nunes. Sandwiched between those losses, Budd defeated current UFC women’s featherweight champ Germaine de Randamie.

Dufresne also is fighting on the card, facing Gabrielle Holloway on the prelims. It’s a safe bet Dufresne is motivated to capitalize on the momentum she gained from her upset win over Coenen.

Bellator 174 takes place Friday at WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Okla. MMAjunkie streams the prelims before Spike takes over for the main card. Here are five reasons to watch the fight card.

1. Going for gold

At 35, Coenen is only two years older than Budd, but has far more MMA miles on her body, competing in 30 pro bouts dating back to 2000. Budd, who has 11 fights to her name, made her debut in 2010.

With her upset loss at the hands of Dufresne, one can’t help but wonder if time has caught up with Coenen, one of the most tenured fighters in women’s MMA.

Budd currently is riding a seven-fight winning streak heading into the first title fight of her career, with her most recent five fights all going the distance. Budd (9-2 MMA, 3-0 BMMA) has struggled with slow starts in her past two outings and it would not be a surprise to see Coenen (23-7 MMA, 2-1 BMMA) attempt to exploit that.

As a side note, let’s all hope this fight ends without any controversy, unlike another recent women’s featherweight title fight.

2. Short notice, big opportunity

In October 2013, Mike Rhodes, fresh off winning the RFA welterweight title, made the move to the UFC. The jump did not go well. He went 0-3 before being released by the promotion. Now on a 4-0 run, with his most recent fight earning him the Victory FC middleweight title, Rhodes gets a shot with Bellator, stepping in on short notice to face Kendall Grove.

While this is not an ideal situation for Rhodes (10-4 MMA, 0-0 BMMA), it is a tremendous opportunity. Grove (23-16 MMA, 4-3 BMMA), the winner of Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” is coming off a TKO loss to former Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko. With a win here, Rhodes, a product of Team Roufusport, could immediately put his name in the middleweight mix.

3. The road back begins here

At Bellator 159, Joe Taimanglo forced Darrion Caldwell to tap to a guillotine choke, ending Caldwell’s nine-fight winning streak. The win should have earned Taimanglo a shot at bantamweight champ Eduardo Dantas. But Taimanglo came in overweight, scuppering his hopes for a title fight.

Instead, Bellator booked a rematch between Caldwell and Taimanglo. Caldwell cruised to a decision win in that fight, setting up an April title fight with Dantas.

Taimanglo’s (23-7-1 MMA, 6-3 BMMA) road back to title contention begins at Bellator 174, where he meets Steve Garcia (7-1 MMA, 5-1 BMMA), who enters the fight coming off a decision win over Ronnie Lawrence at Bellator 162.

4. A world champion debuts

If you like jiu-jitsu, you’re going to want to tune in to the prelims to catch one of Bellator’s latest signings, jiu-jitsu world champion Rafael Lovato.

Lovato, a former Legacy FC middleweight champion, joins Bellator with a perfect MMA record of 4-0, winning each of those fights by stoppage.

Lovato (4-0 MMA, 0-0 BMMA), one of the most decorated Americans to participate in jiu-jitsu, gets a favorable matchup in his Bellator debut, facing Wayman Carter (7-4 MMA, 0-0 BMMA), who also is a jiu-jitsu based fighter. Four of Carter’s seven victories have come via tapout, and each of his four losses have come via submission.

5. No time for a letdown

Dufresne is coming off the biggest win of her career, defeating Coenen on short notice after more than a year away from the cage. And let’s not forget that she had given birth a few months before that fight. Dufresne’s reward is to fight on the prelims of the card on which the woman she defeated in May fights for a Bellator title.

I’d expect Dufresne (6-2 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) to approach her featherweight fight with Gabrielle Holloway with a significant chip on her shoulder. Holloway (5-5 MMA, 0-2 BMMA) enters the matchup with losses in five of her past seven outings.

For more on Bellator 174, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.