Michael Chandler-Benson Henderson 2, A.J. McKee-Darrion Caldwell set for Bellator 244 in Chicago

Bellator in June will return to the city of Chicago proper for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Bellator 244 is set for June 6 at Wintrust Arena on the near South Side of the city, the promotion announced today. The main card streams on DAZN following prelims on MMA Junkie.

In the main event, former lightweight champion Michael Chandler (20-5 MMA, 17-5 BMMA) meets former UFC and WEC champ Benson Henderson (28-8 MMA, 5-3 BMMA) in a rematch from a 2016 fight Chandler won by split decision. In the co-feature, A.J. McKee (16-0 MMA, 16-0 BMMA) will take on Darrion Caldwell (15-3 MMA, 12-2 BMMA) in the semifinals of the ongoing featherweight grand prix.

Chandler got back in the win column this past December in Japan with a first-round knockout of Sidney Outlaw at Bellator 237. It was his rebound from a title fight loss to Patricio Freire at Bellator 221 in May 2019. Freire knocked chandler out in 61 seconds to claim the lightweight belt to go along with his featherweight title.

Before the loss to Freire, Chandler had three straight wins, including a decision over Brent Primus in December 2018 to reclaim the lightweight title.

Henderson has rebounded with four straight wins after starting his Bellator tenure on a 1-3 slide. He debuted with the promotion nearly four years ago and fought Andrey Koreshkov for the welterweight title, but lost a decision. He bounced back with a return to lightweight and a win over current dual champion Freire, who suffered a leg injury that led to a Henderson TKO.

After that first Bellator win, he fought Chandler for the lightweight title while Chandler still was champion, but dropped a split call. He had a second straight split decision setback nearly 10 months later with a loss to Patricky Freire at Bellator 183. But since then, he has a submission win over Roger Huerta and three straight decisions over Saad Awad, Adam Piccolotti and Myles Jury.

McKee will be looking to book a trip to the tournament final. This past September, he knocked out Georgi Karakhanyan in just eight seconds at Bellator 228 in the opening round. In his quarterfinal fight in Honolulu in December, he stopped Derek Campos with a third-round armbar to stay unbeaten.

Caldwell, a former Bellator bantamweight champion, has back-to-back wins after moving up to featherweight for the tournament. Prior to that, he had successive losses to Kyoji Horiguchi. The first came in a Rizin event for that promotion’s bantamweight title in Japan, but he lost by submission. The two rematched in June 2019 for Bellator’s bantamweight belt, but Horiguchi took a unanimous decision and Caldwell lost the title.

Caldwell moved to featherweight, a division in which he experimented in a one-off fight while bantamweight champ, and took a unanimous decision from Henry Corrales in the tournament’s opening round. In January, he handed Adam Borics the first loss of his career with a submission in the quarterfinals to advance to the meeting with McKee.

Wintrust Arena is less than three years old. The 10,000-seat venue is the home of the DePaul University men’s and women’s basketball teams, as well as the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. Bellator’s recent events in the Chicago area have taken place at Allstate Arena in northwest suburban Rosemont, Ill., about 20 miles from the city. Bellator held events there in 2017, 2018 and 2019. But the promotion’s most recent visit to Chicago proper was in August 2010 for Bellator 25 at the Chicago Theatre.