Bellator week 6 went down May 8^th in Robstown, Texas but it has taken us some time to recover from the blow to our hometown guy Wilson Reis (now 7-1). He not only had his undefeated record broken and was knocked out of contention for the $100K finals by underdog Joe Soto (now 6-0). While most of the media outlets have been focused on the night’s spectacular knockout-Yahir Reyes‘ Spinning Backfist that leveled Estevan Payan (more on that after the jump), not too much has been made of the Reis loss. It sure as hell made an impact on us; and after procrastinating the phone call to our champ to discuss the loss, we finally manned up and got the interview. First, here is a recap of the fight with a few observations. Stay tuned for the interview coming shortly and you will easily see why, even in defeat, Reis is a Philly champ and Soto is marked man.

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Right now, Eddie Alvarez, the Kensington-born brawler training out of Fishtown’s Philadelphia Fight Factory, is the highest-profile MMA fighter representing Philly. If you’re a fight fan, a wannabe tough guy needing to know who to avoid, or just a Philadelphian looking for the next local celeb, you should know why.

That’s where we come in. The Following is the official* Eddie Alvarez Crash Course: who the guy is, how the guy fights and where the guy will be fighting. All in under 600 words. For those who have been keeping a half an eye on the local fighter, it’ll be a quick refresher; for those who just blinked twice when they read his name, it’ll be a helpful catch-you-up.

Oh, and if you’re not a cake-eater, you need to know more, so tune in anyway. Hit the jump.

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Bellator

Reis on the attack

Last Friday night in Uncasville Connecticut Bellator Fighting, ESPN’s foray into MMA, second week of fights went down. The night was highlighted by Lyman Good and local boy Wilson Reis stretching their undefeated records to 8-0 and 7-0, respectively. The Complex covered it live after plowing through the archaic traffic patterns of New Jersey, the pitfalls of Connecticut (fun fact: never, ever follow a sign for “Downtown West Haven”) and other challenges too numerous to name here. Aside from tweeting the blow by blow, we have the smothering coverage and a couple peripheral thoughts on the show, all after the jump.

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The second week of the newly formed Bellator Fighting Championship is here, just in time to see Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu United phenom Wilson Reis back at work. He’ll be facing Henry Martinez, a little-known grappler fighting out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, tonight at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. Reis’ opponent looks mean and has the bio of a very hard worker, but judging from his light track record (Martinez hasn’t seen anyone on Reis’ level of competition) and Bellator’s seemingly protective matchmaking (thus far, most of the matches involving Bellator’s marquee names have been noticeably one-sided), he probably won’t be inspiring a lot gamblers to lay their money down on the long shot. Still, it is the fight game, and in the fight game anything can happen, especially when both sides know that just one loss eliminates you from the $175K purse.

It is no secret that tSC is in the tank for our man Reis. We hyped him up early and we’re just as excited to see see him get back to scientifically deconstructing opponents now. We’ll be covering the fight from every angle.

Tonight we’ll be reporting live from Connecticut — updates, observations, results, and everywhichway Reis brings the pain in 140 characters or less via my Twitter (@JoeBlo). Unless you are making the trip through the depths of traffic hell to see the show, we’ll be your go-to for the fights’ blow-by-blow.

If you miss that, we’ll be checking out the broadcast at Rumba’s at Fourth and Norris on Saturday Night from 9 to 11 p.m. (between the music, the atmosphere, the fight-enthused crowd and the access to the all-too-rare ESPN Deportes, Rumba’s has quickly become Philly’s go-to Bellator bar).

If you miss that we’ll have a full recap — filled with all the loose teeth and gritty details that are only available ringside — up right here early next week.

To stave you off until then, here is link for those not easily offended: If you want to see how raw the UFC is, listen to the company’s head honcho Dana White as he gets earthy all over a reporter whom he perceives as “writing bullshit stories.”

It isn’t all that often you get to hear a multimillionaire business mogul with aspirations of penetrating the main stream drop bombs like “faggot” and “dumb bitch” on his immediate outlet to the general public. An outburst like that, with literally millions of dollars worth of deals in negotiations on the table, is pretty gangster.

If those “bullshit stories” get blowback like that, who knows what is in store for the reporter twittering from a fight night? Find out tonight.