Ilima-Lei Macfarlane will call for title shot with win over Kana Watanabe at Bellator 295

HONOLULU – One of Bellator’s all-time great champions has a plan to recapture a title before it’s time to hang up the gloves.

Former women’s flyweight champion Ilima-Lei Macfarlane (12-2 MMA, 11-2 BMMA) is set to return Saturday for a fight in front of her home city fans against Kana Watanabe (11-1-1 MMA, 3-1 BMMA) at Bellator 295, which takes place Saturday at Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu. The main card airs on Showtime following prelims on MMA Junkie.

If Macfarlane, a Honolulu native, can get the 125-pound belt back, she’d like to retire in front of her home fans.

“I don’t think I’m going to be one of those that’s like, ‘I’m done,’ and then I’m not,” Macfarlane told MMA Junkie at an open workout session for fans and the media at Royal Hawaiian Center in Honolulu. “I always say that I do want to retire definitively. The plan is if I win this fight, I’m going to call for a title shot. It just makes sense that the winner of Saturday gets the next shot – and that’ll be it. That’ll be the end.”

Macfarlane lost the women’s flyweight title to Juliana Velasquez in late 2020. It was her first MMA loss. She dropped a second in a row after that to Justine Kish before a bounce-back win over Bruna Ellen this past August.

But Velasquez lost the title to current champ Liz Carmouche, who happens to be a longtime training partner and friend of hers. Their dream long has been if they have to fight, it might as well be for the title in a big production.

“I want to get it out of the way,” Macfarlane said. “OK: So (back to Honolulu in) December. … I have no choice but to retire here. All right, if I win on Saturday night, then I’m going to call for the shot and I’m going to call for Uncle Scott (Coker) and Bellator to come back in December. How’s that?”

Check out Macfarlane’s full interview in the video above.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for Bellator 295.