In the first season Bellator Lightweight Tournament, Imada advanced to the finals after defeating Alonzo Martinez and Jorge Masvidal. The upset win over Masvidal was notable for Imada's bizarre inverse triangle choke while Masvidal was standing up. The submission has been acknowledged by many MMA mediums as the Submission of the Year for 2009. He was awarded a Bazzie award from Inside MMA on HDNet for the unorthodox submission victory and Submission of the Year Honors at the World MMA Awards. At Bellator 12, Imada fought top five ranked Eddie Alvarez for the chance to become the first Bellator Lightweight Champion. Alvarez got the better of the battle and won the fight in the second round via rear-naked choke. Imada returned to Bellator the following April, entering the Lightweight Tournament for the second time. His first fight was originally to be a rematch against Jorge Masvidal. He was then scheduled to fight against Ferrid Kheder at Bellator 15, but an injury forced Kheder out of the bout. Instead, at Bellator 14 Imada fought James Krause and won via armbar submission. With the win over Krause, Imada moved onto the semi-final round against Carey Vanier. In the second round after Vanier lost his footing, Imada capitalized and applied an armbar that caused Vanier to tap out. Imada then moved on to the finals taking place at Bellator 22. There, Imada fought Pat Curran in the Season Two finals to see who would advance to fight champion Eddie Alvarez. Curran defeated Imada via controversial split decision. Immediately following the decision, some in the crowd began booing. Bellator Lightweight Champion Eddie Alvarez weighed in on the decision, saying "It was a tough fight. It could’ve gone either way.” Bellator again signed Imada for their Lightweight Tournament taking place during their fourth season. Imada had his quarterfinal fight at Bellator 36. He was originally set to fight Ferrid Kheder who was overweight and decided to leave the arena and not weigh-in. Imada instead fought replacement Josh Shockley. Imada won the fight in the first round after Shockley verbally submitted from Imada's reverse omaplata. The win moved Imada into the semifinals. In the semifinals Imada fought Brazilian jiu-jitsu black beltPatricky Freire at Bellator 39. He was knocked out at 2:53 of the first round with a flying knee followed by a left hook. Imada has also fought professionally in kickboxing. In his most recent bout, he defeated Mostafa Abdollahi by majority decision in a non-tournament bout at the Shoot Boxing World Tournament 2012 in Tokyo, Japan on November 17, 2012.
