Juan Archuleta vs. Patrick Mix set for vacant Bellator bantamweight title

Bellator will crown a new bantamweight champion in September.

Bellator MMA has a doubleheader of events planned for September, capped off by a bantamweight title bout.

ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reported on Wednesday that Juan Archuleta and Patrick “Patchy” Mix have agreed to fight on September 12th at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. This is the first bantamweight championship fight for Bellator since Kyoji Horiguchi vacated both his Bellator and RIZIN titles due to injury.

Archuleta (24-2) has been competing at featherweight over his past three fights, including an unsuccessful attempt to win the 145 lbs title from Patricio “Pitbull” Freire in their tournament matchup. While he’s coming off a decision win over Henry Corrales, the last bantamweight win for “The Spaniard” came via decision against Ricky Bandejas in in January 2019.

Mix (13-0) is a talented submission specialist out of New York. His last bout took place under the RIZIN banner, when he tapped out Yuki Motoya in under two minutes. In the Bellator cage, he’s submitted Ricky Bandejas and the late Isaiah Chapman. Of his 13 wins, nine have come by submission and six of them have been in the opening round.

Presumably Sergio Pettis is waiting to see who wins this bout and he would be next in line for a title shot, having beaten Ricky Bandejas last month to improve to 2-0 in his Bellator career.

Bellator’s September 11th show will feature Lyoto Machida vs. Phil Davis 2 as the main event.