Bellator MMA
Jordan Breen takes a look at Bellator 226 and the madness that came with it.
Less than three months ago, I wrote about how Bellator 222 was the quintessential Scott Coker card. I stand by that, but at the very least, we need to consider Bellator 226 as a dismaying subset of the Coker essence. Walk with me.
Was the card in San Jose? Check.
Did it feature some part of a promotional tournament? Check.
Was it headlined by two UFC retreads? Check.
Did the main event end in an iffy controversy? Check.
Did said controversy lead to a contrived in-cage fracas to set up a future fight? Check.
Did a brilliant undefeated prospect get the biggest win of his career in thrilling fashion, only to be instantly forgotten in the wake of some manufactured hoopla? Check.
Bellator 226’s main event saw dual-division champion Ryan Bader soundly chugging along toward his first successful heavyweight title defense as he whooped veteran Cheick Kongo every which way for three-plus minutes. Then, with Kongo stacked up against the fence, there was some handfighting, an alleged eye poke and that was all she wrote en route to a No Contest verdict. Unsatisfactory to say the least, especially as debate rages as to whether or not Kongo was actually poked in the eye or was simply faking it.
“I was two minutes away from finishing him and he took the easy way, and he knew it. I felt it,” Bader said after the bout. “I felt him start dwindling and that was his shot, you know? … I poked him in the nose and he goes like this, like I hit him in the eye. It’s unfortunate that it happened at all, but, yeah.”
Does any of this matter? No, of course not. Because then Quinton “Rampage” Jackson rushed the cage, ostensibly to honor his teammate Kongo, while Bader egged him on, yelling “Get the f— in here, let’s go. Come on.”
It is irrelevant if you believe that in close quarters Bader gouged Kongo in the eye, or if he simply booped him on the nose, because despite Kongo having won eight straight fights to earn this title shot, he is nowhere near the draw that his training partner Jackson is. Now, I don’t think Rampage is being Machiavellian or malicious in this case, but it still must feel rotten to have the rug swept from under you by a close compatriot, especially one like Jackson, who for years now has been entirely disenfranchised with MMA and simply collecting paychecks and relying on his charisma and past laurels to rake in dough.
Here’s a pop quiz for you. If I say “Strikeforce: Nashville,” what’s the first thing you think of? Of course, it’s the infamous four-on-one, Cesar Gracie Team-versus-Jason “Mayhem” Miller brawl and Gus Johnson’s absurd “Sometimes these things happen in MMA” commentary. Now, quickly, what was the actual main event of that card? … … … Yes, I’m sure you eventually went “A-ha! Jake Shields beat Dan Henderson!”, which is correct. At the same time, it speaks volumes that you remember a major MMA promotion’s title tripleheader on primetime network television for an absurd skirmish that marred the entire event and became one of the most infamous moments in the sport’s history. This card will be no different and history will simply roll on. In fact, Bellator MMA President Scott Coker tacitly ensured this in the post-fight press conference by, in his usual evasive way, trying to distance himself and the promotion on the whole from the evening’s happenings.
“These things happen sometimes in this sport with the open-fingered gloves,” Coker said following the event. “Whether we would run it back, that depends on Ryan and his next step, as far as fighting at 205 or fighting as a heavyweight.”
Coker lamented the incident and was quick to downplay its significance toward Bellator’s product, suggesting that 205-pound title challenges like Gegard Mousasi, or a rematch with Lyoto Machida who knocked Bader out in August 2012, were more to the promotion’s taste. Yet, when discussing Machida, Coker also invoked the phrase “unfinished business,” as though Bader doesn’t own a 2012 win over Jackson himself and like this isn’t the promotion that promoted Kimbo Slice against DaDa 5000.
Look, I don’t think Scott Coker and Co. sit around planning these kind of cringey flashpoints to attract attention. At the same time, this is the same promotion, under the same braintrust, that set up a fight between shopworn Tito Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar with Justin McCully sitting cageside in a beekeeper’s mask.
Even if Coker and Bellator aren’t suborning these kind of antics, in a way, I am conflicted. Whether it’s Strikeforce or Bellator, Coker is perpetually in a second banana position behind the UFC, and hell, this card came on the same day as UFC 242; for his promotional efforts, it often seems like even bad publicity is good publicity. Anything to make the media write about you and actually give a damn. Now, even if they do a Bader-Machida rematch, or have him face Gegard Mousasi, or whatever the case might be, they always have the heat for a pointless Rampage rematch in their back pocket. Is it a bit silly and antisocial? Sure, but how else is he going to make a dent?
Yet, shouldn’t someone, anyone, care that there was a featherweight contendership tournament on display here? Does anyone care about Emmanuel Sanchez reaffirming himself as one of the most underrated fighters in the sport that never gets talked about? How about Derek Campos and Pedro Carvalho finding their footing at 145 pounds with the biggest wins of their career? Most importantly, what about undefeated Adam Borics, now 14-0, knocking out former Bellator champ Pat Curran with his trademark flying assault? Just as soon as you watched Bellator’s featherweight tournament quarterfinals, you forgot they happened because of the Bader-Rampage silliness.
Typically, fans and media like to posture as though what is deplorable about situations like Bader-Rampage or the Nashville brawl and so forth, is that they’re antithetical to some mystical, nebulous tenets of “honor” or “respect” that are supposedly inherent to MMA, or that it will cause the wider public to hammer the sport like John McCain in 1996. That’s foolishness. “Martial arts” might be part of the sport’s appellation, but this is 2019 and it’s just athletes fighting in cages for money; this is prizefighting, and more than that, the wider public has now grown past the notion that MMA is “human cockfighting.”
The victims here aren’t people who love MMA, because they can realize how goofy these incidents are and the extent to which promoters and fighters use them to set up future endeavors. Ryan Bader has two of this promotion’s titles. Cheick Kongo, even if in truth’s eye he faked a foul, is still going to be on Bellator main cards for the foreseeable future. Rampage Jackson is going to keep getting major fights for major money that he barely trains for. The real casualties here are the fighters who trained their asses off for the promotion’s featherweight tournament and won’t even get talked about or remembered. When Bellator announces the semifinals of the tournament, you’ll have to look up who the participants even beat in the quarters.
Is this bad, irresponsible promotion? No, I don’t think so. Mostly, it’s silly and transparent. Nonetheless, it comes at the expense of young, hungry fighters who deserve at least a sliver of the spotlight. But, by this time, we should know what to expect.