Goiti Yamauchi is likely going to be out for a while after his loss at Bellator 292.
Yamauchi suffered a brutal 26-second loss to Michael Page after sustaining just a single strike on Friday in the main card opener of Bellator 292. In a grisly sequence, Page appeared to badly injure Yamauchi’s right knee with his only kick of the night.
Bellator CEO Scottt Coker confirmed at Bellator 292’s post-fight press conference that Yamauchi’s manager told him that early tests showed the knee to be in rough shape.
“Based on the x-ray, it’s a patella tendon rupture,” Coker said. “So that sounds very painful.”
Yamauchi, 30, is a 10-year Bellator veteran who holds the record for most submissions (nine) under the promotion’s banner. The loss to Page snapped a three-fight win streak for the Brazilian welterweight that had propelled him to the brink of title contention.
On the other side, Page, 35, has now authored two of the more brutal finishes in Bellator history — the other being his skull-denting knockout of Evangelista Santos in 2016.
It was a quick return to the cage for “MVP” following his one-fight cameo in bare-knuckle boxing, and with a 7-1 record over his past eight MMA bouts, he called for a title shot next against undefeated Bellator welterweihgt champion Yaroslav Amosov.
Coker was responsive to the idea, though he noted that Page will have to wait in line.
“I know we have [Jason] Jackson in the wings, right? So we have to be respectful to that. He’s been waiting a long time,” Coker said. “But I’m excited to get ‘MVP’ back and get busy. I mean, this guy is so talented, he’s so fast, and if you were going to tell me that he was going to do a leg kick and take someone out with a leg kick, I don’t know if I would’ve believed it. But that’s how versatile he is. So good for him and I’ve always enjoyed watching that guy fight, because he can do it all, so we’ll have him back in the cage soon.
“I think he’s ranked No. 1 or No. 2 now, so he’s going to have to kind of hold tight until Jackson gets his shot, and then he’ll get a shot after that.”