In May, Bellator decided to strip Vitaly Minakov of the heavyweight title after more than two years of inactivity. The title has remained vacant since. Now, no one’s saying the main event of Friday’s Bellator 161 event, a heavyweight bout between Cheick Kongo and Tony Johnson , is a title-eliminator, but the fighters would be well served to treat it as such, because you never know. In the co-main event, Joe Warren , a former Bellator bantamweight and featherweight champion who has gone 1-2 in his last three fights, looks to right a listing ship when he faces Sirwan Kakai . Also appearing on the main card is Anastasia Yankova , a flyweight the promotion is putting a great deal of marketing capital behind in the hope she will become a star along the lines of a certain former UFC women’s bantamweight champion