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By Alvin Carter III, MMATorch Specialist
All year Strikeforce has been taking the right steps to securing their spot as the nations number two MMA fight promotion. They acquired Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson, hosted the most important event in women's MMA (Gina Carano vs. Cris "Cyborg" Santos), and has put on 10 quality cards. They also cultivated fresh standouts like the 6-0 submission artist Tyron "T-Wood" Woodley who fought five times in 2009, and three of those fights were for Strikeforce.
Strikeforce has earned the "number two" spot, and now they might have to watch their backs. Attempts to counter the Ultimate Fighting Championship's rear naked choke on the market may seem futile, but Strikeforce may have to be ready to step into the ring with Bellator Fighting Championships in the meantime.
Bellator, one of the few (or only) successful new fight promotions, has successfully gained entrance into the fight market this year. There are a couple of factors that make their story remarkable and clever. This Chicago based fight promotion setup a full season of championship tournaments for featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight titles. Fans like tournaments and promotions need legitimate champions. Instead of taking the Affliction— let's see how many semi-super fights we can put on— strategy, Bellator facilitated the creation of four champions that fans could see fight on multiple occasions giving the fighters an opportunity to collect fans.
The creation of a finite season is one of elements that makes Bellator's story noteworthy. Having a set structure that creates half of the matchups on each card takes the weight off of match makers and allows for main event bouts to be promoted well in advance. (Not that the advance promotion always happened.) Also, a tournament is just easier for fans to get behind. The set structure builds anticipation, which is a key factor in the fight games hype machine. Bellator kept it simple and had fewer snags than other promotions.
I was able to go to Bellator 11 at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT. That is a great venue to see a card on the east coast, and their accommodations definitely motivate the fighters who otherwise would not get to experience the luxuries that larger fight promotions offer. (One fighter mentioned the amazing treatment in his pre-fight interview.)
Every section of the gaming floors, buffets, highly starred restaurants, and hotel halls were filled with Tiger Schulmann MMA gym members (and their families). A number of the fighters in Bellator's first season were Tiger Schulmann trained, and received massive support at the event. Those who were not attending to see a TS fighter were excited to see Igor Gracie fight on the card in a non-tournament bout. Bellator definitely secured a strong northeast fan base by having numerous Tiger Schulmann fighters on their northeast cards. One of TS's undefeated fighters, Lyman Good, went on to take the Welterweight Championship by ending the tournaments final bout in a stunning first round TKO.
By the end of the season Bellator crowned a welterweight champion that hails from the large Tiger Schulmann northeast gym network in Lyman Good, an American Top Team product in Hector Lombard, a young west coast wrestler in Joe Soto, and one of the most vicious lightweights around in Eddie Alverez. It's obvious that Alverez provides the organizations star power, but he still is not a draw to the casual fan. While some may see this as a weak star for an organization, Alverez is anything but. All of Bellator's champions happen to bring a set of fans that either participate in the sport or truly love it. It is better for a fledgling promotion to have a moderate amount of fans across various regions than to rely on a single megastar that is one KO from falling out of favor. It is hard to knock out Eddie Alverez, and if someone does it wouldn't be the same as if Fedor or Brock Lesnar lost unexpectedly.
One of the major sticking points with any promotion is how to deliver the content to the fans. Bellator started simple. They made a deal with ESPN Deportes and featured certain fights on their website at specific times each week. In the coming season they will air live fights on Fox Sports Net, which reaches 82 million homes. Telemundo will also carry an hour-long highlight show of each live event in Spanish, and NBC will feature a late night half-hour highlight show. The third season is also slated to start in August with the same television partners.
Having two full seasons tentatively scheduled this far in advance is an indicator that the promotions organization skills are healthy. It seems that money is a constant problem for most new promotions, but the lack of organization is usually what leads to the companies down fall. (E.g. Not having a worthy replacement for a headliner that has previously tested positive for steroid use.)
Bellator Fighting Championships is my 2009 Not So Silent Warrior of the Year. They have done a lot in a short amount of time. I am eager to see how Bellator performs now that they have crowned champions and a larger television network platform.
Strikeforce seems safe at the moment, but Cung Le's lose after dominating the majority of his fight with Scott Smith proves you are never truly out of the woods.
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Alvin Benjamin Carter III is an MMATorch Specialist columnist focusing on the business and statistic side of the sport of MMA. He trains in SanDa / Shan Shou (Chinese Kickboxing) and has started training in MMA. He also has a business background in music production, management, and clothing. He has launched two companies which cater to niche markets, giving him experience in examining trends and attitudes that can affect a particular business model, which he applies in his weekly column for MMATorch to the sport of MMA. Follow Alvin on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AwwwSnap.
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