Bellator 131 has come and gone, but a large amount of fans are left scratching their heads wondering what’s next? We’ve all seen the changes, the new faces, the Pro Wrestling gimmicks, and now we’ve seen that Scott Coker isn’t just a one trick pony. Coker has taken over this brand and made it into a potential threat to the UFC, just as Strikeforce became in late 2010. The best thing for Coker is now he has Viacom, a much larger company than Showtime and Zuffa, backing him up with Spike TV looking to fill the void left from Impact Wrestling, formerly known as TNA. Bellator 131 was just the beginning of what looks to be a long and competitive journey for Scott Coker and the Bellator gang.
Ortiz vs Bonnar. Tito vs Stephan. Promos with masked men. Live concert style entrances. Trash talking. Middle Fingers. This was the dramatic buildup and after math of the highly anticipated fight between Stephan Bonnar and Tito Ortiz. Saving the build up and simply going straight into the new questions as in, where does each man sit in Bellator’s future? Bonnar was “let go” from his contract to go beat up on Tito, whereas Ortiz was trying to escape Dana White and the UFC. With this new gimmick of MMA using Wrestling’s storylines, where does each fighter on the roster fit in? Hopefully, perfectly. The reason that wrestling is being so over used here is simply put that the WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment, is still one of the top rated shows on television despite the predetermined matches and fake action. This is something the UFC picked up on in its early days of The Ultimate Fighter and also scheduling fights around the times WWE had gone off air. There is a direct correlation between that and the mass amount of media attention the UFC gathered in early 2005 and into 2010. Now Bellator is trying to capitalize on the same momentum left by Impact Wrestling.
The Future of Bellator and these ridiculous segments. Truthfully, the UFC presents the best mixed martial artists in one place which typically results in the best show in the world, technically. Although number one and two in the world can only fight in the UFC, that doesn’t always qualify it as the most exciting fight. Anyone can look at Bellator’s roster and see that most guys are just good enough to hit UFC’s under-card, that’s obvious. However, if you can use the microphone skills and showmanship of any particular athlete, they can be a superstar at least for one fight. Recall a man named Chael P. Sonnen who took three fairly boring decisions over mid ranked middleweights and ended up with a title shot against Anderson Silva, then nearly captured that title? That man was self promoted and used a character to put himself in the spotlight, which led to more prominent fights and even TWO more title fights. This angle cannot be downplayed as any competitor can use it to make a name stand out. This isn’t to say that all fighters on the roster need to resort to drama and story lines to make a name for themselves, but those on the top already have some light shed on them. The best athletes can make it without the tactics that Bellator seems to be resorting to, but these antics will bring in fans, which only bolsters the top fighters media attention. Who cared about Stephan Bonnar or Tito Ortiz after their last UFC fight? Not many, Bonnar was destroyed by Anderson Silva and Tito ran out of the door running his mouth. However, Tito called out possibly Bellator’s best fighter in Alexander Shlemenko and ended up choking him out. Bonnar came to call out Tito and would lose in a fairly dominant fight, but he sold tickets to this show with his promotion style.
This brings the age old question of any sports team, brand, or a sport in general, is it enough? The answer is simply no. Yet, this isn’t a death sentence for a progressive company, but a re-invigoration of the public eye. This change in focus angled towards building up drama for fans and also creating an environment of entertainment in the Bellator cage is a positive one, but not the one that brings large sums of money to the pockets. Here at Last Word on Sports there was one article published about what Coker can do to change Bellator, and that move was to change the format of the seasons and events. This has begun and can only be a fresh start for everybody involved at every level. The top guys can have a real schedule where new competitors are readily uninjured and the lower guys have more opportunity to move up as opposed to waiting six or seven months for a new tournament. This also enables Bellator as a whole to progress all throughout the year building up to head to head events with the UFC and maybe even some new signings. The one thing we can all look forward to is big showmanship and big moves by the front office of Bellator, and that’s a very exciting idea.
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