MMA: Bellator XIII Aftermath, Roger Huerta vs. Chad Hinton

The most anticipated fight of Bellator XIII was Roger Huerta vs. Chad Hinton. Hinton went into the bout being undefeated at 6-0-0 while Huerta, well known in the UFC community, went into the bout at 20-3-1.

People expected there to be a struggle, but not too many people expected there to be such fireworks. Hinton ended up losing the match, but he certainly did not go down without a fight. Without a doubt, Huerta had his hands full the whole fight, shaking off any ring rust he may have accumulated over the last seven months.

During the post fight press conference, Huerta repeatedly mentioned how surprised he was at Hinton's strength. Hinton himself said that he knew that a he could pull out of an armbar or a Kimura, but that a kneebar was the only submission he was worried about. "I heard it pop a couple of times," he said, "and I remembered that I'm thirty-eight years old..."

Hinton showed heart during a few pivotal moments of the match. In one instance, Huerta kicked him straight in the stomach, dropping him the to the ground. Hinton hung in there until the third round, though, and brought the fight to the standing position again. Just when you thought he may have had enough, Hinton pulled the fight back to a standing position to once again trade with Huerta.

There was one instance where the crowd dropped their mouths open in awe. It was when Hinton took Huerta's back. Huerta did a beautiful twisting monkey roll of sorts, landing on top of Hinton in a dominant position. It was a textbook display of UFC caliber fighting that Hinton forced Huerta to draw from his experience.

Despite his win, Huerta by no means dominated the fight. He was able to get the upper hand on the majority of situations, but as Huerta himself stated, Hinton is a brute for a lightweight. There were clearly times in the first and second rounds that Hinton had chances to end the fight, but Huerta's experience proved to be the determining factor.

Bjorn Rebney, CEO of Bellator, mentioned that one really good element of the fight was that Huerta had the chance to utilize all areas of his fighting skill—everything from free movement striking to the clinch and the ground.

Hinton showed a lot of fans that Bellator has really tough competition, even against seasoned fighters from the UFC like Huerta. Not only that, Hinton showed he has a ton of promise despite being in his late thirties.

What's next for Hinton? Even though he's out of this season's Bellator competition, Bjorn Rebney was very excited and vocal about looking forward to having him back. Hinton will be a tough fight for any contender, and a future rematch between Huerta and Hinton should be on the radar of Bellator because of the great back-and-forth action.

As for Huerta, we'll get a chance to see more of his prominence five weeks from now as he moves further up in the Bellator ladder and into the lightweight semifinals. If his match against Hinton is any indicator of the competition level that Huerta will face as he moves up the ladder, he will certainly have his hands full. "El Matador" may just meet Eddie Alvarez across the cage here soon, and with Huerta performing as well as he did in Bellator XIII, anything can happen.