Rockton's Corey Anderson 'fell short' in Bellator rematch title fight for $1 million

CHICAGO — This time, former Hononegah wrestler Corey Anderson could not find a way to get Vadim Nemkov down.

And when Friday's Bellator 288 $1 million Light Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament was over, it was Anderson who went down in a unanimous decision.

"I'm not going to say I fell, but I fell short," Anderson said. "It is what it is, but I ain't done. We've got time."

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Anderson said his leg was "compromised early" from Nemkov's leg and calf kicks, and "it made it really hard to step into things the whole fight."

And it showed. Anderson controlled most of the entire fight when the two met for the first time back on April 15. But despite earning a TKO call late in the third round, the title and the $1 million were snatched away minutes later when a video review deemed the fight a no-contest due to an accidental head butt.

This time, it was a totally different fight — and a different outcome.

After owning Anderson most of the way, Nemkov walked out with the Bellator light heavyweight title belt, the tourney championship and the big cash prize.

"I still feel like a million dollars," Anderson said afterward. "But I've got to go back to work."

Anderson attempted 15 takedowns, and failed on every one. In the first fight, he had Nemkov down in each round, and he held him down for nearly three minutes in the third and final round.

"I think he thought he was going to take me down with ease like in the first fight, and that wasn't the case," Nemkov said through an interpreter. "I relied a lot on my speed. I believed in my game plan, and I believed in myself, and now I'm the champion."

Anderson explained his failure to take Nemkov down it in MMA terms.

"He just didn't commit on his jab this time," he said. "The first time he was stepping really deep and letting me get right in there, and this time it was like small steps. It was very smart on his behalf."

The combination of his inability to turn it into a wrestling match, and the effects of Nemkov's leg kicks, turned the fight in the other direction.

"It was Nemkov's night," Bellator president Scott Coker said. "I feel bad for Corey, really bad for Corey, because he had it in that first one. ... But he didn't have it tonight."

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Anderson agreed.

"I didn't have it," Anderson said. "You're going to have losses in life, but we've been here before, and we always come back. We're going to keep fighting, and keep kicking.

"This is just fuel to the fire."

Anderson has five more fights left on his current Bellator contract, and he still has hopes of getting another title shot before that winds down.

Another Hononegah grad falls, and more...

Anderson's disappointing end was just the finisher of a long night of big bouts.

Another former Hononegah wrestler, Rob Fenicle, was on the undercard Friday night, falling to Laird Anderson by a TKO halfway through the second round. Fenicle, a 2010 Hononegah grad, wrestled on the same high school and college team as Anderson as they both eventually went on to star at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

In the co-main event just before the Anderson-Nemkov matchup, and with his famous cousin Khabib (the former UFC lightweight champ) watching cage-side, Usman Nurmagomedov pounded out a big win for the lightweight title, beating down a bloodied former champ Patricky Freire.

Once they were unable to unleash during the Anderson-Nemkov bout, the largest ovation probably came when Chicago native Daniel James withstood some serious early punishment from the fifth-ranked heavyweight Tyrell Fortune and then knocked him out with a vicious upper-cut midway through the second.

"That was for you, Chicago," James shouted after, bringing the crowd to another level.

Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @JayTaft. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a wide variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears to youth sports, for more than 20 years at the Register Star, and for nearly 30 years all together.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Bellator 288: Corey Anderson loses to Vadim Nemkov in $1 million fight