Bellator: Newcastle - Predictions and Picks

#2 Aaron Chalmers vs. Corey Browning

Reality TV star Aaron Chalmers faces his biggest test to date on Saturday

When Aaron Chalmers – star of controversial UK reality TV shows Geordie Shore and Ex on the Beach - announced a foray into MMA back in 2017, most fans of the sport scoffed. The likelihood of Chalmers succeeding seemed absolutely minimal, and it seemed more likely that he’d become another CM Punk – someone who would sell tickets as a curiosity and then crash and burn inside the cage.

Surprisingly though, Chalmers has proved all of his critics wrong thus far. Handed some relatively easy opponents by BAMMA – understandably given his profile and lack of experience – Chalmers thrived, submitting Greg Jenkins with a keylock before knocking out both Alex Thompson and Karl Donaldson in under a minute.

Bellator swiftly came knocking and signed up the former reality star – with this series of European events clearly in mind – and Chalmers made his promotional debut at Bellator 200 last May, submitting opponent Ash Griffiths with a guillotine choke in just under two minutes.

Chalmers is clearly an A+ athlete, and while he’s not the most technical fighter, he’s clearly got some skills both standing and on the ground. What’s impressed me about him, however, is the way he’s slowly stepped up in competition. His first three opponents had about as much experience as him, but Griffiths had 9 pro fights when he faced ‘The Joker’, even if 5 of those were losses.

Browning, his latest opponent, actually made some noise inside Bellator last year by taking out the much-hyped ‘Baby Slice’ Kevin Ferguson Jr. That fight was largely sloppy, but saw Browning win essentially by virtue of his stronger cardio – he survived Ferguson’s offense and TKO’d his exhausted opponent in the second round.

Could he do the same to Chalmers? I guess so. For all of his success thus far Chalmers is still massively untested – not that it’s his fault, but every fighter reaches their ceiling at some stage – and none of his opponents have forced him to fight through adversity. Browning is clearly tough enough to do that, and is also tough enough to capitalise if the Geordie runs out of steam.

In the end though I’m pretty confident in Chalmers here; I can’t see Scott Coker and company looking to match him too highly at this stage, and while Browning will be a tougher out than his other opponents – he may well reach the second round – Chalmers looks good enough to get him out of there at some point.

The Pick: Chalmers via second round submission