Cedric Doumbe will now face Jaleel Willis in the co-main event of Bellator: Champions Series Paris, following the withdrawal of Derek Anderson.
The card, set for May 17th has suffered some major changes of the recent days, with Usman Nurmagomedov being forced to withdraw from his Lightweight title defence against Alexander Shabliy due to injury. Following title fight falling off the card, the promotion were quick to announce that fan favourite Doumbe would make his Bellator debut on the card.
No stranger to keeping active throughout his extensive kickboxing career, Doumbe’s promotional debut will be the second time he’s made the walk in 10 weeks. The ending of his last bout was brought to a rather strange conclusion. After signalling once to referee Marc Goddard there was something preventing Doumbe from the way he usually performed, the Frenchman was warned by the referee that he can’t stop fighting. Just a few seconds later and Doumbe once against shot Goddard a look and pointed to his foot, with this being the second time, the referee was forced to intervene and waved to the contest off.
As it transpired, ‘Le Meilluer’ had a small shard of glass protruding from his foot. It is unclear as to when the glass ended up in his foot but it ultimately meant that Doumbe could not continue to compete and Baysangur Chamsoudinov received the third round win.
Looking to bounce back from his first professional mixed martial arts loss, the 31-year-old will be squaring off with the considerably more experienced Jaleel Willis. After a solid start to his promotional tenure, the seven fight Bellator veteran has struggled to string together back-to-back wins in recent times, going 1-3 in his last four. Following a one fight deal in 2016, Wallis signed with Bellator in 2020, Willis was handed a huge opportunity to make a name for himself instantly when he was matched against Patricky Pitbull.
However, the bout was pulled on fight day following Pitbull not being medically cleared to fight due to Labyrinthitis. Wallis then went on to pick up two wins against Mark Lemminger and Maycon Mendonca before finding himself on a two-fight losing streak, with Mukhamed Berkhamov and Sabah Homasi both submitting him in the first round.
His last fight saw the American take on Ramazan Kuramagomedov at Bellator 297. The unbeaten Russian stopped Wallis in the first round.
The 10 bout card now features a host of French talent, following the PFL conducting two extremely successful shows in the French capital in recent months. Mansour Barnaoui, Yves Landu, Thibault Gouti and Gregory Babene are all set to feature at the Accor Arena.
