Bellator 174 - The First Featherweight Queen

Date: 3rd March 2017

Location: Thackerville, Oklahoma (US)

Venue: WinStar World Casino

The main event for Bellator 174 features a championship fight for the inaugural women’s featherweight title, with veterans Marloes Coenen and Julia Budd battling it out to be crowned the first queen of the division. This fight was scheduled last year for Bellator 155, however Alexis Dufresne replaced an injured Budd and missed weight, forcing the bout to be a non-title fight. Now Coenen and Budd finally meet for a shot at gold.

This is an exciting match-up. Both are very experienced fighters but with very different skill sets. Coenen’s strengths lie in her grappling whereas Budd’s are in her stand up skills. Budd will look to avoid Coenen’s dominant wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to keep the fight on the feet and enforce her own lethal Muay Thai and Kickboxing. This will be a fascinating contest for two worthy champions and pioneers of women’s MMA.

What also makes this fight interesting is that the UFC will be keeping a very close eye on both fighters. With a brand new women’s featherweight division of their own they are eager to bolster their roster with the best talent and these two ladies are certainly up there. Between them they have fought the best female fighters of all time, including Amanda Nunes, Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino, Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate and Germaine de Randamie – the current UFC featherweight champion who Budd proudly boasts a win over. 

See below for a full breakdown of the main card: