While there are surely a few fights of merit on each card (read Seth’s breakdown of Bellator 120 here), both UFC 173 and the Bellator PPV are hard sells to even the most hardcore of MMA fans at their current prices. The question is: Which card would you actually consider paying for?
Vote in our poll after the jump, then make your case/air your grievances for either card in the comments section.
(“Sorry bro, it was either rent or Fight Pass. Easiest decision I’ve ever made.”)
While there are surely a few fights of merit on each card (read Seth’s breakdown of Bellator 120 here), both UFC 173 and the Bellator PPV are hard sells to even the most hardcore of MMA fans at their current prices. The question is: Which card would you actually consider paying for?
Vote in our poll after the jump, then make your case/air your grievances for either card in the comments section.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
By the way, the results of our “Which Injury/Disease will Take Down Tito Ortiz?” poll were truly a thing to behold. With 30.24% of the vote, “neck injury” just barely edged out “back injury” at 29.86%. Greater than the results themselves, however, were the injuries/diseases you guys came up with, which read like one of Bob Ducca’s list of ailments. Some of our favorites:
-Neckerchief rash
-Lupalaria – The extremely rare combination of lupus and malaria
-Bitch tits
-rectal cranial insertion syndrome
-Chimney Sweep’s Lung
-Spontaneous vaginal growth
-dogging a hall of famer like that just goes to show ypu have no respect for the sport n r obviously 1 sided try n open up your poor pathetic piece of shit mind why dont u step in the cage n show us how its done then smartass bitchmade shittalking backbone lackin fat fuck
To surprisingly little reaction this weekend, Bellator announced that the lineup for Bellator 120: Alvarez vs. Chandler 3 — also known as the promotion’s first pay-per-view event — has been set. (Bellator 120 goes down Saturday, May 17th, at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.) Don’t worry, Bellator has clearly learned from their whole “plan a pay-per-view around two old guys and some fading UFC castoffs” phase. But are there enough intriguing, quality fights on this lineup to justify paying for a Bellator event? Let’s look over the fight card and determine for ourselves.
All nine of the fights for Bellator 120 — four Spike preliminaries, five main card contests — have been ranked solely by my interest in watching them. If you disagree, feel free to write some terrible things about me in the comments section. I look forward to ignoring them.
I don’t think either fighter is even capable of a boring match, much less a boring match against each other. I could type paragraph after paragraph on how their first two encounters resulted in two of the greatest fights in our sport’s history, and how…oh why am I even trying to pretend that I’m not going to insert an Al Bundy GIF and move along to the next fight:
To surprisingly little reaction this weekend, Bellator announced that the lineup for Bellator 120: Alvarez vs. Chandler 3 — also known as the promotion’s first pay-per-view event — has been set. (Bellator 120 goes down Saturday, May 17th, at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.) Don’t worry, Bellator has clearly learned from their whole “plan a pay-per-view around two old guys and some fading UFC castoffs” phase. But are there enough intriguing, quality fights on this lineup to justify paying for a Bellator event? Let’s look over the fight card and determine for ourselves.
All nine of the fights for Bellator 120 — four Spike preliminaries, five main card contests — have been ranked solely by my interest in watching them. If you disagree, feel free to write some terrible things about me in the comments section. I look forward to ignoring them.
I don’t think either fighter is even capable of a boring match, much less a boring match against each other. I could type paragraph after paragraph on how their first two encounters resulted in two of the greatest fights in our sport’s history, and how…oh why am I even trying to pretend that I’m not going to insert an Al Bundy GIF and move along to the next fight:
The go-home show before a pay-per-view is extremely influential on buy rates, which is the only reason why I’m assuming this fight isn’t on the main card. These guys have been with Bellator for ages, and always produce fun, exciting fights. I’d be more than willing to pay for this one; not that I’m complaining about getting it on cable.
This fight is such a freak show, random, “Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” pairing that Ben Askren has already labeled it a work. Why wouldn’t I be looking forward to it?
(Preliminary Card) Mike Richman vs. Goiti Yamauchi
Back at Bellator 110, it appeared that these two would crush their opponents and meet up in the next round of Bellator’s featherweight tournament. It looked like such an obvious conclusion that I advised you all to bet money on both men winning. Naturally, neither guy advanced, so Bellator booked these two to kick off the preliminaries of their inaugural pay-per-view, because of course this is a thing that’s happening. As forced as this fight feels, I’m not going to act like I won’t at least watch it.
Call me crazy, but I firmly believe that Bellator’s “Sign the UFC’s leftovers” business model isn’t so much an attempt to gain viewers by trotting out guys that fight fans used to sort-of care about as it is an attempt to quell the “These guys haven’t beaten anybody!” criticisms of their roster. In other words, Cheick Kongo isn’t the guy they want, he’s the guy they want to lose to the guys they want. Because, let’s face it, Bellator Heavyweight Champion Vitaly Minakov’s victory over Cup-Cheick did more to establish him as a legitimate heavyweight to most fight fans than a victory over a stoic, doughy Russian they’ve never heard of would have. I’ll pause for you to make your own “Who is Vitaly Minakov?” jokes, I guess (I hope you feel really good about yourself for that super original joke, by the way).
Essentially, Bellator is using Kongo as a “jobber to the stars:” a guy who can beat the not-quite-readies, but isn’t a threat to beat any of the promotion’s top heavyweights. This means that every once in a while they’ll have to book him in squash matches against 6-1-1 nobodies so fans will continue to perceive him as a threat, making his losses against the fighters Bellator actually wants to push seem that much more significant. This fight is a necessary evil, is what I’m saying.
(Main Card) Alexander Shlemenko vs. Whoever Bellator Finds to Replace Tito Ortiz at the Last Minute
(Preliminary Card) Heavyweight Tournament Final: Alexander Volkov vs. Blagoi Ivanov
Yes, Bellator’s heavyweight bouts tend to quickly reduce themselves to two guys sloppily waltzing through a “What’s cardio?” display of all things garbage-ass, but I really like the stoic Russian with an “-ov” in his last name. He’s a beast, and should be a legitimate threat to Vitaly Minakov’s unblemished record.
(Main Card) Will Brooks vs. Nate Jolly
Leave it to Bellator to put a popcorn match on the main card of their first-ever pay-per-view. Nate Jolly has never fought for Bellator, and it’s not like he’s a name that casual fans would at least recognize. If they wanted to use the regional star to entice the locals to buy tickets, there’s no reason why they couldn’t put this fight on the preliminaries and bump Mike Richman vs. Goiti Yamauchi to the main card. Likewise, if they wanted to use this fight to get Will Brooks — a 13-1 fighter who has gone 5-1 in Bellator — over with the fans, then why not book Brooks against a fighter that the average Bellator fan would actually recognize?
I’m not trying to insult either fighter/say that the fight will be boring just because I’m not heavily invested in it/deny that climate change is real/whatever it is that MMA fans automatically assume whenever someone writes that they aren’t very interested in an upcoming fight, I’m just saying that I’m really not that interested in this bout.
(Complete lack of facial expressions? Unbuttoned shirt, to expose a gold medallion with possible religious significance? I’m going to take a wild guess and say this man is from…Russia? / Props: YouTube.com/alnado)
Bellator’s “Alvarez vs. Chandler III” pay-per-view card is just over a month away, but only three fights have been officially confirmed so far. And so, reigning middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko has decided to do a little YouTube matchmaking to get a big fight on the card. Here’s what “Storm” had to say in a video statement released yesterday; I’ve done my best to transcribe it in its entirety…
“Tito Ortiz, you say you want to fight May 17th on Bellator’s PPV. I will fight you. I will beat you. Tito, I respect you but I must beat you because I am champion. I know that Tito Ortiz, different weight class. I know that Tito Ortiz, light-heavyweight. This is not problem for me. I ready. I ready fight with light-heavyweight, no problem. Bjorn, make this fight for me because I am champion. I am ze best. I will make good fight. Fight of the night.
Ortiz has already accepted the challenge via Instragram and is already doing the kind of intense training that will lead to a back injury about three weeks from now. You heard it here first.
UPDATE:According to Sherdog, Shlemenko vs. Ortiz has been booked for the 5/17 PPV.
(Complete lack of facial expressions? Unbuttoned shirt, to expose a gold medallion with possible religious significance? I’m going to take a wild guess and say this man is from…Russia? / Props: YouTube.com/alnado)
Bellator’s “Alvarez vs. Chandler III” pay-per-view card is just over a month away, but only three fights have been officially confirmed so far. And so, reigning middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko has decided to do a little YouTube matchmaking to get a big fight on the card. Here’s what “Storm” had to say in a video statement released yesterday; I’ve done my best to transcribe it in its entirety…
“Tito Ortiz, you say you want to fight May 17th on Bellator’s PPV. I will fight you. I will beat you. Tito, I respect you but I must beat you because I am champion. I know that Tito Ortiz, different weight class. I know that Tito Ortiz, light-heavyweight. This is not problem for me. I ready. I ready fight with light-heavyweight, no problem. Bjorn, make this fight for me because I am champion. I am ze best. I will make good fight. Fight of the night.
Ortiz has already accepted the challenge via Instragram and is already doing the kind of intense training that will lead to a back injury about three weeks from now. You heard it here first.
UPDATE:According to Sherdog, Shlemenko vs. Ortiz has been booked for the 5/17 PPV.
