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#Post#: 84--------------------------------------------------
Bellator 2.0 Needed To Happen
DIR By: Noctrnl
Date: June 19, 2014, 9:44 pm
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HTML http://fansided.com/2014/06/19/bellator-2-0-needed-happen/#!09m11
“Bellator 2.0″ Scott Coker called it. The former
Strikeforce CEO, now with Bellator MMA, said changes were
imminent for the number two promotion. And not a moment too
soon.
More From MMA
Bellator, despite being fresh off of a successful (for them)
pay-per view, was as stale as ever. Do you know who main evented
the June 6 card, or that there was a card June 6? Probably not.
Change needed to occur.
Yet founder Bjorn Rebney didn’t agree. He was adamant the
tournament format–his baby– that brought his promotion so much
stability, and even a little attention, should stay. Nevermind
that he essentially had four number-one contenders at
lightweight, it worked for him, damn it,
Rebney also seemed copasetic with running events at a torrid
pace, in an age where the UFC has singlehandedly saturated the
sport. But everything was a-ok in Rebney’s book.
It’s somewhat humorous that Rebney, when confronted about the
lack of talent on the cards he promoted, instead chose to attack
the UFC, saying their show is watered down (it is). He then
noted his card was headlined by “undefeated Luiz Philipe Lins,”
which is fine, except nobody knows who he is yet.
It would end up being the last Bellator card Rebney promoted.
For so long, Bellator ran a tired tournament format robbed fans
of fights they wanted to see, and fighters of opportunities and
paydays they had coming. It wasn’t exciting anymore. Coker
stepped in and said that format would be mercifully scaled back,
instead favoring a traditional matchmaking format. You know,
like putting Rampage Jackson and King Mo in a fight to begin
with, as if anyone cared that they made it through a four-man
tournament first.
Also, Coker seemed keen on the idea of not running the
traditional season format in which Bellator adopted, sometimes
running shows for a dozen weeks consecutively, before taking two
months off. Coker said that MMA is a year-round sport, and
should be treated as such.
Remember when World Series of Fighting issued a challenge to
Bellator, and it created some much-needed buzz for both
promotions? Coker also said he wasn’t opposed to the idea of
co-promotion, something he did in Strikeforce. By the way, WSOF,
which Rebney didn’t consider to be in his league, debuts on NBC
in a few weeks.
The company also had highly publicized issues with seemingly the
majority of champions they’ve employed, let’s take a look at
some of those, along with other title-related issues.
Heavyweight- Champion Kole Konrad retired in 2012, as opposed to
continuing in the “dead end job of MMA” as he called it. He’d
defended his title once in the two years of having it.
Light Heavyweight- Champion Atilla Vegh was skipped over, and
said to be injured (he wasn’t) in favor of an interim title, and
a more marketable King Mo vs. Emanuel Newton rematch. Former
champion Christian M’Pumbu booked in a non-title bout with
veteran Travis Wiuff, which he lost. M’Pumbu wouldn’t defend his
title until 650 days after winning it.
Middleweight- Champion Hector Lombard left for the UFC, during
his three year title reign, he defended the title once.
Welterweight- Champion Ben Askren released. Inaugural
Welterweight champion Lyman Good held his title for well over a
year, before finally defending it.
Lightweight- Do we need to get into this? The entire Eddie
Alvarez/Will Brooks/Michael Chandler situation is a mess. Oh
yeah, Dave Jansen and Marcin Held have won tournaments and
earned title shots, too. Also, at the risk of sounding like a
broken record, throughout his 883 day reign as champion, Alvarez
defended his title once.
Featherweight- Tournament winners were skipped over in favor of
giving former champion Pat Curran a title re-match with Daniel
Straus. Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Friere wanted to leave the company
over it. Tournament winner Frodo Khasbulaev has been dealing
with visa issues for over a year.
To no surprise, in the first 1000 days of the title’s existence,
it was defended once.
Bantamweight- Just days after announcing current champion
Eduardo Dantas sustained a head injury, the company announced an
interim title fight. Inaugural champion Zach Makovsky didn’t
defend his title until 547 days after winning it. After losing
the title and another close decision, the company lowballed him
on a contract offer.
Women’s Strawweight- Champion Zoila Gurgel, along with #1-world
Strawweight Jessica Aguilar, and top-10 UFC ranked Jessica eye
were all outright released in 2013, completely killing the
division.
Every single weight division, with some ridiculous controversy,
bonehead idea, or questionable tactic, roughly over the course
of three years.
By all accounts, many involved in Bellator breathed a sigh of
relief upon Rebney’s ousting. Once billed as a company that was
fighter-friendly due to its high-paying tournament format,
Bellator quickly lost that reputation. There were situation in
which fighters brought on as local feature prelim attractions
weren’t booked for the promotion after their original fight, and
would have to sit out their contract, sometimes up to a year.
Not to mention other stories of mismanagement and slime. One
example included highly touted prospect Trey “That Just
Happened” Houston being brought in to the promotion, sporting a
10-0 record, and a previous victory over reality TV star
Jeremiah Riggs. The company fed 10-4 Billy “Mojo” Horne to
Houston, but things didn’t go the way they planned, as Horne
dominated the fight, finishing the prospect early. Horne was
never booked on Bellator again, despite being unbeaten since the
loss. To my understanding, when Horne’s management contacted
Bellator, they shot down any advances, inexplicably.
Just one story heard repeatedly regionally, with surely many
more taking place across the country. Accusations by their own
champion Ben Askren of not administering drug tests, legal
squabbles with Eddie Alvarez, the bad press for the company has
been abundant. Yes, this change had to happen.
Rebney had a fantastic idea– start a promotion from scratch, and
get bought out. He did just that, and succeeded in that aspect.
In the aspect of becoming a solid number two promotion, he did
that as well. Pay-per-view numbers? Exceeded expectations. Even
Bellator’s TV numbers were a decent success. However, the
inability to adapt ultimately ran the company’s founder out of
the promotion.
In his place is Scott Coker, a man that led Strikeforce to great
heights. While it would suffer the same fate as Pride FC, WEC,
and Affliction, it was abundantly clear that Coker understood
what it took to make a promotion work. He embraced ‘attraction
fights’, such as bringing in Herschel Walker or Bobby Lashley.
He embraced female MMA, booking Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano, Cris
Cyborg and Miesha tate in marquee bouts. Now he takes over
Bellator, which has much better base on Spike TV than
Strikeforce did on Showtime.
Call me an optimist, but Coker has the benefits of not only
learning from Rebney’s mistakes, but his own. Bellator 2.0 is
underway.
#Post#: 88--------------------------------------------------
Re: Bellator 2.0 Needed To Happen
DIR By: NikkiNeversleep
Date: June 24, 2014, 5:00 am
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Hooray!!! Coker's back!
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