What the Bellator Fighting Championships CEO means, is that competition between his promotion and the Ultimate Fighting Championship is a good thing and that “Competition breeds more consumer interest and excitement.”
Bjorn Rebney talked to Sherdog.com last weekend after the completion of Saturday’s Bellator 51 event.
On Sept. 24 Bellator went head-to-head against the UFC 135 broadcast, Rebney knows that it’s a one-sided war but it’s the time slot MTV2 has given him so he’s left to compete for the attention of the same audience who tune in to watch the UFC events.
Bellator 51 featured the opening round of the Season Five Bantamweight tournament, and unlike the UFC 135 ppv card which featured two relatively boring heavyweight bouts, the main card of the Canton, Ohio show featured two exciting knockouts one of the flying-knee variety.
“That is a tough head-to-head, but you have to look at it this way,” Rebney said. “You have to look at it from a competitive perspective that — and I know this is a different sport — if you track the expansion of the World Wrestling Federation before it became the WWE, their greatest growth curve came from when there was competition with WCW. Competition breeds expansion. Competition breeds more consumer interest and excitement.”
“I say we put on a good card, and that’s all that matters,” Rebney said. “I’m not one for a lot of hyperbole. I’m not like your old school Bob Arum [or] Don King, where I’m pitching, pitching, pitching. I really truly believe that the [four tournament winners] that were sitting off to my left are four of the best 135-pounders in the world.”
The viewer numbers for Bellator 51 should be in on Monday or Tuesday, and it will be an indicator of how well the upstart promotion did in competing with the UFC Juggernaut.
This coming weekend, Bellator 52 will feature the next round of Season Five Quarterfinal bouts as the heavyweights step into the cage in Lake Charles, Louisiana.