UK MMA stalwarts Tim Wilde and Marc Diakese will meet in a Lightweight clash at Bellator Champions Series London, the promotion have announced.
The pair will square off inside the OVO Arena, London on September 14, in what is the third fight announced for the card.
After the best form of his career, Wilde found himself on the wrong side of a highlight reel KO last time out, when he faced Manoel Sousa. With 12 seconds left of the opening round, Sousa uncorked a monster left hook to the jaw of Wilde, sending 'The Experiment' crashing to the mat.
Prior to that, Wilde had built an impressive six fight unbeaten run with notable wins against Charlie Leary, Yves Landu and Saul Rogers.
The night is already looking to be a busy one for Renegade, with Wilde's team mate, Fabian Edwards, making up one half of the main event when he rematches Johnny Eblen.
Diakese signed with the PFL earlier this year and when the announcement came, the promotion explained that 'Bonecrusher' would compete under PFL Global, PFL Europe & the Bellator banners for the duration of 2024, before entering the 2025 Season.
The 31-year-olds time with the UFC ended after a 15 fight run with the promotion. After 2 years with BAMMA, Diakese signed with the UFC in 2016 and made a blistering start to his time in the Octagon building a three fight winning streak in just 6 months. Unfortunately for Diakese, that impressive start bluntly came to an end as he then picked up three consecutive losses to Drakkar Klose, Dan Hooker and Nasrat Haqparast.
He eventually got back to winning ways against Joe Duffy, before also defeating Lando Vannata later that year. The Great Britain Top Team had been extremely active up until that point but then as 2020 and the Coronavirus rolled round, things slowed up for Diakese, who had to wait until July before being able to make the walk, in a bout he lost against Rafeal Fiziev. He then only made the walk once in 2021 but managed to get back to regular outings in the Octagon across 2022 and 2023, going 3-2 in his last five bouts for the promotion.
