The 26-year-old Major—who moonlights as a fashion designer—boasts a professional record of 6-1, but says that his “actual record is closer to 20-1 when you include all the fights I’ve taken in clubs and in bars and in people’s basements.” He drew big buzz throughout the MMA world with his 2008 win over Carter in a fight that Sherdog.com described by noting that Major “outclassed a man with 14 times as many professional fights” under his belt.

“Matt has a unique and bigger-than-life persona, but below the personality is a 185 pounder who can really fight,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “If Matt focuses on our upcoming tournament, he’s a very dangerous draw for anyone at 185.”

Major says winning the Season 2 tournament and the chance for a title fight against Lombard is his singular goal now that he has signed with Bellator.

The real question is: ‘Is Hector Lombard ready for Matt Major?

I’ll tell you right now, if Hector Lombard knows I’m in the tournament, I know he’s worried about it. I want to be a world champion more than anything and I don’t care who I have to fight or what I have to do to get there.

- Matt Major

Major says he has been “fascinated” by the fight game and martial arts “pretty much since the day I was born.”

“All I ever wanted to do was be the next Jean Claude Van Damme, the next Steven Segal, the next Bruce Lee,” he said. “And now I’m better than all of them. I knew since I was a little kid that I was going to be a great fighter.”

Major was born in Miami, but moved to New Jersey at the age of 8 to live with an aunt after both his mother and father passed away. In high school, he passed up the chance to compete on the school wrestling team, instead opting to take classes in fashion design and merchandising at the local community college. Later, he was accepted at the Art Institute of New York. He studied there and at several other art schools before switching his attention to MMA full-time in his early 20s.

“I’ve trained in every kind of combat you can imagine: I’ve done English boxing, American boxing, Aikido, judo, sword, wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, you name it,” he said. “If the fight ends up on the ground, someone’s gonna get tapped. If it stays standing up, someone’s gonna get hit in the mouth. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Major spent the better part of 2009 training at the famed American Kickboxing Academy is San Jose, Calif. He describes his contract with Bellator as “the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Bellator, I think, is the new face of MMA,” he said. “It’s just a very sophisticated organization and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

For more information, visit Bellator.com, follow Bellator on Twitter @BellatorMMA or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Bellator.

The Latest UFC 110 News and Interviews

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UFC 110

February 21, 2010
Acer Arena
Sydney, Australia

Official Fight Card

Main Card

• Heavyweight: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez
• Middleweight: Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping
• Lightweight: Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos
• Light Heavyweight: Keith Jardine vs. Ryan Bader
• Heavyweight: Mirko Filipovi? vs. Ben Rothwell

Preliminary Card

• Light Heavyweight: Elvis Sinosic vs. Chris Haseman
• Light Heavyweight: Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
• Welterweight: Chris Lytle vs. Brian Foster
• Middleweight: C.B. Dollaway vs. Goran Reljic
• Light Heavyweight: James Te-Huna vs. Igor Pokrajac

Wilson Reis will return for Bellator’s Season 2 featherweight tournament for another crack at the title.

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that 9-1 featherweight standout Wilson Reis will return for Bellator’s Season 2 featherweight tournament looking to avenge his Season 1 loss to Bellator Champion Joe Soto.

The 25-year-old Reis is a back belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and, in 2008, took home the first-ever EliteXC bantamweight championship belt with his win over “The Silent Assassin,” Abel Cullum. Despite entering Bellator Season 1 as the No 1 tournament favorite and the No. 7 ranked featherweight in the world, Reis fell in the semi-final round to the upstart Soto. It was considered by many as the upset of the tournament and was the first and only loss of Reis’ career.

“Wilson’s a very talented fighter at 145 and was just one judge’s decision away from advancing to the featherweight championship fight last season,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “The Soto-Reis fight was one of the best fights in a season of great fights and the chance to potentially see a rematch between these two would be awesome. But first. Wilson has to get through a gauntlet of great fighters at 145. Plain and simple with Wilson’s addition, our featherweight tournament is stacked.”

More than anything, I want to get my rematch against Joe Soto.

I’m a lot more mature now as a fighter and an athlete … a lot more prepared than I was before.

- Wilson Reis

Bellator will also conduct tournaments at 155, 170 and 185 lbs. during Season 2, which begins April 8th on FOX Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo. The winners in each division will be declared No. 1 contenders to the current roster of champions.

Reis was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, known worldwide as a breeding ground for young Jiu-Jitsu fighters.

He trained under the famed Jiu-Jitsu coach Roberto Godoi and first made a name for himself while still a teenager, winning the 2004 Jiu-Jitsu World Championships. Later that same year, he came to the United States to continue his Jiu-Jitsu training at the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu United gym in Jenkintown, Penn., working construction during the day to make ends meet.

About two years later, he began to take up an interest in MMA and started expanding his training to include boxing, grappling and Muay Thai, moving to the Daddis Fight Camps in Philadelphia. He took his first professional MMA fight in July 2007.

“After that first fight, I knew MMA was going to be my sport,” Reis said. “I knew I could be very successful.”

Since then, he has amassed an impressive 9-1 overall record with his lone defeat coming at the hands of the aforementioned Soto.

For more information, visit Bellator.com, follow Bellator on Twitter @BellatorMMA or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Bellator.