Bellator 276: Diana Avsaragova gets new opponent mid-fight week

Bellator 276 on March 12, 2022, continues to suffer some late changes.

MMAMania.com has confirmed with sources close to the promotion that Ashley Deen is out of her 125-pound Flyweight match up against Russia’s Diana Avsaragova. Filling in will be 12-fight veteran, Kyra Batara. The reason for Deen’s removal from the bout is unknown at this time.

In addition, The Underground’s John Morgan has reported that the Lightweight contender bout between Derek Anderson and Goiti Yamauchi is off as well. This all coming after last week’s news that Cat Zingano had been injured out of her Featherweight tilt with former Invicta FC champion, Pam Sorenson.

Luckily for the 23-year-old rising prospect in Avsaragova, she still gets to compete.

The undefeated (4-0) wrestler hasn’t needed to lean on her background whatsoever in her young Bellator career as her two wins thus far have seen her utilize her striking. Debuting in April 2021, Avsaragova only needed 29 seconds to score a knockout against Tara Graff at Bellator 256 (watch highlights). She followed the performance up with a split decision nod over Gabriella Gulfin in July. Her early success has been enough to have the Bellator rankings panel rank her as high as No. 9 in the division.

For the Portland, Ore., native in “Mogwai,” Batara (8-4) anticipated making her promotional debut one month before Avsaragova’s last fight. Set to take on Lena Ovchynnikova, Batara’s bout, unfortunately, fell apart during fight week. She currently rides a three-fight winning streak spanning from 2017 to 2019. All three contests took place inside the Combate Global cage and saw the 4’11” 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu product compete as low as 105 pounds in the Atomweight division on two occasions — the other, and most recent, came at 115 pounds.