Bellator’s ‘main event’ a lame choice
Company needs to highlight its emerging young stars, not serve up aging UFC castoffs
There’s a case to be made that the winner of Saturday’s Bellator MMA welterweight title fight between champion Douglas Lima (29-6) and challenger Rory MacDonald (19-4) will determine the best fighter in the division — not just in Bellator, but in the sport as a whole.
It’s up for debate because of the odd results triangle that exists between MacDonald, UFC champ Tyron Woodley and top contender Stephen Thompson — MacDonald beat Woodley who beat Thompson who beat MacDonald — and because many people automatically assume the best fighter in any weight class has to come from the top organization.
But depending on how things shake out this weekend at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., Bellator MMA might be able to start its 2018 campaign on the re-branded Paramount Network (formerly Spike) by reasonably claiming to have the best fighter on the planet in one of the deepest, most competitive divisions in the sport.
So it only makes sense that Lima and MacDonald will take the stage before tired veterans Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Chael Sonnen step into the cage to contest the opening bout of the Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix Tournament. Say it with me: that’s so Bellator! Here’s an opportunity to put a pair of “in their prime” standouts front and centre and build a case for your company being more than just a home for UFC castoffs and old guys still looking to cash in on their names a couple more times before finally calling it quits. Instead, they’re setting the table for a bout between a 39-year-old light heavyweight who struggles to get motivated and a 40-year-old who did his best work at middleweight, in a heavyweight tournament where half of the participants aren’t heavyweights.
This is the kind of stuff that makes it hard for me to really get behind Bellator MMA as a promotion because, while they have a bunch of intriguing young fighters on the roster, and some very good established names hovering around the top of several divisions, the focus always seems to remain on carnival attractions featuring fighters who are either past their prime, way past their prime or never really had a prime.
And I’m sorry, but stationing Jackson and Sonnen in the main event ahead of Lima and MacDonald is not the same as the UFC positioning Conor McGregor and Nathan Diaz in the main event of UFC 196 ahead of the women’s bantamweight title fight between Holly Holm and Miesha Tate.
McGregor was supposed to be fighting Rafael dos Anjos for the lightweight title before the Brazilian broke his foot a couple weeks before the match. Additionally, this was a pay-per-view fight card and McGregor is the company’s biggest draw, so keeping his name atop the marquee was a no-brainer.
Bellator 192 is airing on television, so this isn’t a case of trying to lure people into spending $60 on some familiar names. Calling it a “Double Main Event” doesn’t make it any better, either, the same way that calling the final bout on Fight Pass or the televised prelims of a UFC show the “main event” for that portion of the show doesn’t make it any more significant.
Being the “Fight Pass Main Event” still means you’re fighting on Fight Pass and being the first half of a “Double Main Event” simply means you’re the co-main event of the evening. Dress it up however you like, it doesn’t change anything.
This isn’t just a one-off thing, either. It’s a long-term, organizational issue that I’ve never understood with Bellator.
Here’s a company with some very talented fighters in their prime and a deep collection of prospects at different levels of development. And yet, from the time Scott Coker took over as president, the fighters who have received the most attention are fading veterans like Sonnen and Jackson, and people with familiar names, but questionable abilities, like former boxer Heather Hardy, the late Kimbo Slice and his son, Baby Slice (Kevin Ferguson Jr.).
Coker did things the same way when he started promoting MMA events with Strikeforce in the mid2000s, but it wasn’t too long before he shifted from fight cards headlined by Tank Abbott and Paul Buentello or Frank Shamrock and Phil Baroni to showcasing the likes of Gilbert Melendez, Nick Diaz and Cris Cyborg.
It’s time to do the same with Bellator MMA.
The welterweight title clash between Lima and MacDonald is the second-best fight of the weekend — behind the UFC heavyweight title fight between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou — and it shouldn’t be playing second fiddle to a carnival barker with a tired gimmick and a guy who hasn’t delivered a great performance in over three years.
E. Spencer Kyte is a freelance journalist who writes about MMA for The Province and Vancouver Sun. Follow him on social media: @spencerkyte.