This past Saturday night was a special day as the sport of mixed martial arts saw shows from the UFC, Bellator, and the World Series of Fighting. Two of the shows main cards were on cable television and the UFC main card was on pay-per-view.
On Saturday night, I was not at any of the events as I was on the road and watched the cards from my hotel room in Virginia.
Unfortunately, my hotel room did not have Spike TV, so I followed the Bellator event on social media. Also, my hotel room did not have Fox Sports 1 and I was unable to view the UFC 180 prelims.
During the prelims, I watched both of the Bellator and World Series of Fighting events on my laptop and iPad. I do have to admit that I muted the World Series of Fighting broadcast as the Bellator broadcast team of Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith is much better than Todd Harris and Bas Rutten.
In terms of main cards, the UFC 180 card was full of finishes and saw Fabricio Werdum land a perfectly timed knee to knockout Mark Hunt and win the UFC interim heavyweight title. Also, Kelvin Gastelum and Ricardo Lamas scored impressive first round victories. The World Series of Fighting card featured a highly anticipated fight between Justin Gaethje and Melvin Guillard, which delivered. However, the card had major pacing problems and hopefully this is something the promotion and NBCSN can correct for their next event on December 13th.
This brings me to Bellator 131. There was a ton of publicly for the fight card leading up to the event and people questioned the choice of having Tito Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar as the main event. Prior to all of the fight cards starting, I was having dinner at a nice place in Virginia and was enjoying some of the college football games while getting food before a night of covering fights. I was sitting at a table with one of my co-workers and I overheard a couple of guys talking about the fights that were taking place that night.
Guess what fight they were talking about? That would be Ortiz and Bonnar. They did not mention any other fight, just that one and the bartender mentioned they would be turning on the fights later in the evening. There was no mention of having UFC or World Series of Fightings fights on at this particular establishment. That is the reason Bellator made Ortiz/Bonnar the main event. Bellator and Spike TV knew they would bring casual fans to the television set, something that not many fighters can currently do in mixed martial arts.
Upon getting back to my home in Tampa on Sunday evening, I began to watch Bellator 131 on my DVR. I saw comments from fans about the fight card and some people felt it looked to much like professional wrestling because of the fighter walkouts. Sometimes I feel that people forget that sports is just a form of entertainment. Personally, I like the new setup for walkouts for Bellator fighters with the video boards. In particular, I liked the set for Mike Richman, as it helped tell the backstory of Richman for fans who are not familiar with him.
After watching the entire fight card, I felt it was entertaining and it was something special. Let’s be honest, there are not many special events in mixed martial arts currently. For me, I prefer quality or quantity. While the UFC is planning 45 shows in 2015, Bellator is reducing their schedule by 9 shows, which is a good thing and will lead to deeper fight cards for them.
There is many questions about the future of Bellator and can they become a true competitor to the UFC. The UFC having a true competitor is a good thing as competition makes you work harder to make sure you have the best product.
Bellator 131 was special and had a big event feel. I hope that this is something we see not only from Bellator in 2015, but also from the UFC and every mixed martial arts promotion. Only time will tell.