When the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted on Spike TV in April of 2005 it changed the industry. Mixed martial arts was an underground cult, a small hoard of passionate supporters that believed that when it comes to entertainment and getting your money’s worth, this was where you got the best bang for your buck.
Within a year casual sports fans were asking me about this obscure sport that they didn’t understand and seemingly overnight it was thrust into the minds of North American tube surfers that Spike TV was where you went to watch “Ultimate Fighting”.
Today we are almost 8 years removed from that landmark event that pitted Stephan Bonnar against Forrest Griffin in a bloody war for the ages and the UFC are off to bigger and better things on FOX and a new fighting organization fills that void.
Bellator MMA, the tournament-based fighting organization weren’t supposed to last 5 months, let alone 5 years. The tiny promotion that had a graveyard slot on the Spanish ESPN network now find themselves on a network that was the hot spot for MMA action for the 7 years that the UFC and Spike were in bed together and a chance to make a real splash.
Since they lost the UFC tape library in the early shades of this year they have been drumming it into the heads of those that watch 1000 ways to die or whatever ridiculous programming they run these days that Bellator is coming on January 17.
The biggest asset that Bellator have at this point is TNA wrestling. The Nashville-based organization have consistently been the biggest ratings grabber for the network since the UFC’s departure and leaves the door wide open for some crossover appeal.
When the UFC launched The Ultimate Fighter in 2005 a large reason that it took off and grabbed the disgruntled former wrestling fan is because WWE Chairman Vince McMahon gave the green light for the hit reality television series to follow his top-rated program, Monday Night RAW.
Bellator are looking to start from day one with a bang rather than whimper and are supplying double title fights and three-quarters of the light-heavyweight tournament so let’s take a look at this card.
Pat Curran vs. Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire
It was confirmed this week by Dave Meltzer that they will be opening the show with their featherweight title tilt between reigning king Pat Curran and challenger Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire.
This is a stroke of genius from the Chicago-based organization’s officials. While the lightweight championship main event could be a show stealer as well, if you’re laying your money down on a knock-down, drag-out war that sets Irvine, California ablaze this is probably where your money will lye.
Curran will look to defend his crown for the first time since his utter domination of Joe Warren to capture the 145-pound title and it seems we might see a lot of the Team Curran product this year if he can keep up his winning ways with two other challengers waiting in the wings.
‘Pitbull’ isn’t an easy task though, the season four featherweight tourney champ has all the tools to potentially tip over the apple cart here – He relentlessly attacks, he has an impressive gas tank and can conceivably get a knockout of a submission making this the most interesting fight on the docket.
Light-heavyweight tournament:
Three-quarters of the eight-man field at 205-pounds will be on display tomorrow night but there’s one catch, only one has a guaranteed slot on Spike with two being placed on the preliminary card that streams of Spike.com and will get some love on the big-stage if we get some quick stoppages.
Fomer UFC light-heavyweight title-challenger Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral meets 31-year-old Russian import Mikhail Zayats in the lone televised bout. The Combat Sambo World Champion is making his promotional debut on a large stage after years competing on the M-1 Challenge circuit against Sobral who is an odds-on favorite to make it to finals.
The other two tournament bouts pit TUF cast-off and ‘Kimbo Slayer’ Seth Petruzelli against once beaten Strikeforce veteran Jacob Noe as well as Kings MMA product Emanuel Newton squares off with Bulgarian fighter Atanas Djambazov who rides a ten bout winning streak into his promotional debut.
The lone 205-pound tournament bout not featured on the bill is the debut of former Strikeforce king Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal meeting Polish export and former heavyweight Przemyslaw Mysiala which is a co-feature next week.
Michael Chandler vs. Rick Hawn
Another fight that has game stealer written all over it as Rick Hawn looks to add the Bellator lightweight crown to his list of hardware. Michael Chandler is one of the most interesting fighters in MMA today, the unbeaten NCAA Division-I All-American wrestler went from unknown prospect to tournament champion to lightweight champion that just beat up Eddie Alvarez in a year and change.
Hawn might be the one to dethrone the 26-year-old though, the former welterweight tournament runner-up has looked close to unstoppable since making the jump down to 155-pounds. The 2004 Olympian brings a lot to the table and poses problems that we haven’t seen for Chandler before.
Can Chandler take down an Olympic judoka? Can Chander deal with getting tagged by the heavy itinerary that Hawn brings? These are the questions that make this a fight I’ll be watching very closely.
If your curiosity is there with Bellator I suggest you do check out tomorrows event. It’s got some fights that have the potential to knock your socks off and hell, it’s free you cheap bastard.
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By Justin Faux