Hector Lombard Proves Again Why He's Bellator's Middleweight Champ

Hector Lombard, the Bellator middleweight champion, fought a non-title fight against Whisper Goodman, a balanced fighter holding seven knockouts and seven submissions going into the fight.

Lombard immediately went on the aggressive with Goodman, and 38 seconds later, Goodman was knocked out.

Goodman didn't even know where he was after a minute or so, and after a long commercial break, he was able to recover enough to stand and see Lombard's hand raised. I'm sure at that moment he was similar to Jay Silva in thinking, "Why haven't they started the fight yet?"

Lombard has repeatedly demonstrated that not only is he the best middleweight in the division, he will likely go without a challenge for his entire Bellator reign. One can only hope Bellator's future seasons attract even more highly skilled talent, because this guy has potential to go sky high.

When watching Lombard fight, one automatically wonders how he would do against some of the other best middleweights in the world: Jake Shields (pre-UFC welterweight status), Anderson Silva, and after the Silva beatdown, and Chael Sonnen deserves to be lumped in as well.

Another great match would be a catchweight bout with Georges St. Pierre. Lombard has a similar record to GSP, and he has a similar fighting style in a lot of ways. Lombard prefers to keep things standing, but if it gets tough, he can easily rely on his Olympic-level Judo experience.

Lombard will be fighting Alexander Shlemenko on October 28, 2010 for the middleweight championship. Shlemenko earned a tough victory over Brian Baker to win the Bellator Season 2 middleweight tournament, and he'll no doubt have an even tougher time facing Lombard.

As for Lombard's MMA future? He seems to have made a nice home in Bellator. We'll continue to look forward to seeing him dominate competition as his recent victory over Goodman was his 15th straight.

Lombard's last loss was in 2005, and both of Lombard's losses have been by decision and ironically in Pride. Since 2005, though, he seems to have found his rhythm, as in his 15-fight win streak, he has ended nine of them in round one.

Congratulations, Hector, and keep up the exciting fights. We love them!