Tag: Bellator

[EXCLUSIVE] Bellator Champ Pat Curran Is Making the Most of His Short Window of Opportunity


(“The goal was to make a good living doing this and I’m already there. I want to see how far I can take it.” Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting)

By Elias Cepeda

Of late, much of the big news that comes from Bellator has to do with contract clauses and disputes, lawsuits and high-profile cancellations. Because of that, one can imagine it being difficult for a marquee Bellator fighter like Pat Curran to focus on simply doing his job well.

However, the featherweight champion insists that he doesn’t keep up on other people’s news and stays focused on what matters — fighting. “I don’t like to think about it too much,” he tells CagePotato.

“As a fighter I have a very short career window and I have to make the most of where I’m at right now. I’m on a main stage with a major organization that gives me the opportunity to stay busy and make a pretty decent living.”

Having a tough opponent in front of you can help a fighter keep focused as well and Curran has exactly that this Saturday at Bellator 106 when he defends his belt against Bellator Season 6 tournament winner Daniel Straus.

“He’s very talented and very well rounded,” Curran says of the challenger.

“He throws a lot of straight, long punches and follows up with kicks. He does a very good job mixing up striking with wrestling. He’s good at clinching with guys and wearing them out. I’m definitely not just expecting a striking fight like I had with ‘Pitbull’ [Patricio Freire]. I’m prepared for anything. If it becomes a striking match, I’m ready for it. If it goes to the ground, I’m ready to mix it up.”


(“The goal was to make a good living doing this and I’m already there. I want to see how far I can take it.” Photo via Esther Lin/MMAFighting)

By Elias Cepeda

Of late, much of the big news that comes from Bellator has to do with contract clauses and disputes, lawsuits and high-profile cancellations. Because of that, one can imagine it being difficult for a marquee Bellator fighter like Pat Curran to focus on simply doing his job well.

However, the featherweight champion insists that he doesn’t keep up on other people’s news and stays focused on what matters — fighting. “I don’t like to think about it too much,” he tells CagePotato.

“As a fighter I have a very short career window and I have to make the most of where I’m at right now. I’m on a main stage with a major organization that gives me the opportunity to stay busy and make a pretty decent living.”

Having a tough opponent in front of you can help a fighter keep focused as well and Curran has exactly that this Saturday at Bellator 106 when he defends his belt against Bellator Season 6 tournament winner Daniel Straus.

“He’s very talented and very well rounded,” Curran says of the challenger.

“He throws a lot of straight, long punches and follows up with kicks. He does a very good job mixing up striking with wrestling. He’s good at clinching with guys and wearing them out. I’m definitely not just expecting a striking fight like I had with ‘Pitbull’ [Patricio Freire]. I’m prepared for anything. If it becomes a striking match, I’m ready for it. If it goes to the ground, I’m ready to mix it up.”

Curran has indeed managed to develop a well-rounded game in his brief six years in the sport of MMA. He’s come a long way from growing up pretty ignorant of the sport in Florida and having his cousin, UFC veteran Jeff Curran, convince him to move to Northern Illinois with him and give it a shot.

“I had no clue back then,” Curran says. “I kind of went into it blind.”

After high school and going to school to become a paramedic, Curran heeded his cousin’s advice, moved north and began training as much as he could in between odd jobs. Now, he’s one of the best 145 pound fighters in the world and says he’s accomplished what he set out to do, though his hunger remains.

“My goal, overall, is to keep doing what I’m doing,” Pat explains.

“I know I’m still young and haven’t hit my peak yet. I want to keep an open mind, keep developing and keep learning. The goal was to make a good living doing this and I’m already there. I want to see how far I can take it.”

Tito Ortiz’S Neck Injury a Devastating Blow for Future of Bellator MMA

On Nov. 2, 2013, Bellator MMA was prepared to host the biggest event in the history of the rising organization. With a card headlined by former UFC fighters and current TNA superstars Tito Ortiz and Quentin Jackson going toe-to-toe, the potential was t…

On Nov. 2, 2013, Bellator MMA was prepared to host the biggest event in the history of the rising organization. With a card headlined by former UFC fighters and current TNA superstars Tito Ortiz and Quentin Jackson going toe-to-toe, the potential was there for an extraordinary rise in popularity.

With Ortiz being forced to pull out of the event with a neck injury, however, the future of Bellator has sustained a devastating blow.

Ortiz and Jackson are the biggest names in the history of Bellator, and even past their respective primes, were expected to draw ratings. Unfortunately, the fight will not happen, as Ortiz has suffered a severe neck injury mere days before the event was expected to be held.

No matter what you may think about Ortiz as a fighter, it’s foolish to blame him for refusing to fight with a fractured neck.

At 38, the likelihood of Ortiz recovering and facing Jackson at a future date is slim.

This all adds up to Bellator losing what would’ve been the biggest draw in the history of the young company. It may not have the draw value of a Jon Jones fight, but the presence of those two men would’ve been an attractive feature.

Now, Bellator is stuck in recovery mode.

 

PPV Cancelled

As one might imagine, losing the main event to a heavily-promoted card has resulted in Bellator losing potential viewers. Unfortunately for Bellator, it didn’t just lose its top star, but it lost another well-known name to an injury.

Jason Chambers reports that Karo Parisyan will also miss the event.

Even still, that isn’t the biggest loss of the event. That would be the event itself.

Per the official Bellator Twitter feed, the pay-per-view has been canceled and the event will now be held on Spike TV.

Devastating is an understatement.

There are still fights worth talking about, but Bellator was given the chance to rival UFC with a pay-per-view show. Instead, the event was cancelled and Bellator is back to hosting television events while Dana White‘s organization puts together some of the highest-grossing cards in all of athletics.

It may be unfair to compare Bellator to the MMA organization that has ruled the craft since the 1990s, but UFC has set the bar. For all of the hype that it’s received, however, the loss of the pay-per-view is a significant setback.

The question is, how can it recover?

 

Potential Replacement Opponents

Call me an optimist, but I don’t believe that Bellator‘s future is entirely decided by the loss of the pay-per-view. It’s an unfortunate twist of fate, and it does create an uphill battle, but there’s still time for the company to recover and improve the trajectory of its path to rivaling UFC.

In terms of making a leap toward UFC’s level, however, that opportunity has been lost.

The key moving forward will be for Bellator to maximize the value of the fighters it presently has, and most specifically, finding Rampage Jackson a fight in the near future. His clash with Ortiz would’ve garnered the most headlines, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a strong potential opponent.

According to Dave Meltzer of MMAFighting.com, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal is willing to fight Jackson on short notice.

“I found out everything today. I told ‘em I’d fight Quinton, too,” said Lawal, who’s slated to rematch Emanuel Newton for an interim strap on the event’s main card. “I think this whole thing is weird.”

Lawal has a fight that’s already scheduled, but a clash between the two is a possibility that’s worth exploring.

Like Jackson, Lawal is a member of TNA Impact Wrestling, which creates the opportunity for an elevated level of promotion and exposure. Both organizations are working with Spike TV, and the opportunity to pit new TNA superstars against one another is promising.

If not Lawal, options truly are limited when it comes to finding a fighter with name value. Bellator is a rising promotion, and without Ortiz and Jackson going toe-to-toe, it will need to trust a relatively unproven commodity’s ability to rise up for a stellar performance.

One way or another, Bellator must act fast to limit the damage done by the loss of Jackson versus Ortiz.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The Unsupportable Opinion: Death Was the Best Outcome for Bellator’s Inaugural PPV


(MMA gets another PPV that never was)

When your dog is terminally ill, you put it down.

When the sales for your inaugural PPV are anemic, you should do the same.

Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.

Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.

Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on:


(MMA gets another PPV that never was)

By Matt Saccaro

When your dog is terminally ill, you put it down.

When the sales for your inaugural PPV are anemic, you should do the same.

Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.

Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.

Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on: What happens here? The show probably bombs with 10k buys or fewer. Viacom realizes that, like Dana White said, there’s no value in Bellator.

Viacom either pulls the plug outright or scales down Bellator from hopeful claimant to the UFC’s throne into something akin to the toughman contests on FX. If this happened, Viacom would keep it around because it’d get decent enough ratings for the pittance it’d cost to produce the scaled down version of the show.

Scenario 2, Ortiz does get injured and the PPV still goes on: Attila Vegh replaces Ortiz against Rampage (even though Attila Vegh was “injured” and had to pull out of a fight on this PPV previously). The PPV bombs even worse.

Those two scenarios are both terrible for Bellator. The PPV, Ortiz or no, was destined for Affliction-level failure. Making the card free on Spike was the best option (and was from the onset of Viacom’s acquisition of former UFC “stars”).

The casuals don’t know Michael Chandler (despite the fact that he’s the face of Dave & Busters). The casuals don’t know Eddie Alvarez. The casuals don’t know most of the other fighters on the card either. Putting the entirety of the Bellator PPV card on Spike will help build their profiles a little more, or at the very least stop people from forgetting about them.

Furthermore, Bellator can use Rampage like he should’ve been used: To help get more ratings on Spike to draw more eyeballs to Bellator’s stable of talented, non-UFC-washout fighters.

Bjorn Rebney said that they were going to book a fight for Rampage “literally as quickly as possible.” Hopefully for Bellator’s sake, that means it’ll be on free television (unless they’re planning on producing an ad-hoc PPV solely to showcase an old, slow, whining, lazy Rampage versus some random can). Rampage, being Bellator’s fighter with the greatest name value — yeah, I know, that’s not saying much — can draw more viewers to the younger, more talented fighters on Bellator’s roster.

Allow me to make a comparison to pro wrestling history: #2 promotion WCW hired Hulk Hogan after he had left the WWE (then WWF) because he was a star. That star brought viewers to WCW, viewers who where then wowed by some the undercard matches between young, exciting wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr, and Chris Jericho — wrestlers who many casual fans might not have ever seen if the older, established Hogan hadn’t brought attention to WCW.

Of course, Bellator Rampage Jackson is no WCW Hulk Hogan — who was still the biggest star in wrestling at the time. Nevertheless, Bellator will build greater name value for their fighters by showcasing their big UFC acquisitions Tito and Rampage on free TV alongside the young, hungry, talented fighters. Canceling the PPV has allowed them to do that.

The cloud of Bellator’s PPV cancellation doesn’t have a silver lining because the entire cloud practically is a silver lining.

Bellator PPV Cancelled, Moved to Spike TV After Tito Ortiz Suffers Neck Fracture

Bellator 106 is moving to Spike TV after the huge news that Tito Ortiz was withdrawing from the promotion’s first ever PPV main event. Ortiz was supposed to fight former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Details remain scarce, but Ortiz suffered a serious neck injury and will not be available to fight next […]

Bellator 106 is moving to Spike TV after the huge news that Tito Ortiz was withdrawing from the promotion’s first ever PPV main event. Ortiz was supposed to fight former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Details remain scarce, but Ortiz suffered a serious neck injury and will not be available to fight next […]

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Tito Ortiz Injured, Out of Bellator PPV Fight with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson

Tito Ortiz will not fight on Bellator’s inaugural pay-per-view card after all. 
According to MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, Ortiz suffered a neck injury in training and is unable to compete on the Nov. 2 fight card. Helwani writes:

Bellator is cur…

Tito Ortiz will not fight on Bellator’s inaugural pay-per-view card after all. 

According to MMA Fighting‘s Ariel Helwani, Ortiz suffered a neck injury in training and is unable to compete on the Nov. 2 fight card. Helwani writes:

Bellator is currently seeking a replacement for Ortiz, and it is unclear at this time whether Jackson will remain on the Nov. 2 card. There is a chance next weekend’s pay-per-view card turns into a free Spike TV card with Jackson being moved to another event.

It is unclear whether his opponent, former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, will remain in the event at this time. 

This news comes after an Instagram post from Ortiz Friday morning which bore a gloomy message.

The post reads, “I know everything happens for a reason, but sometimes I wish I knew what that reason was.” 

This marks yet another instance of an injury forcing Ortiz out of a high-profile bout. 

In March 2010, a neck injury forced Ortiz out of a bout with Chuck Liddell following their coaching stint on Season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter. 

One year after that, in March 2011, Ortiz pulled out of a matchup with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira at UFC Fight Night 24, citing a “serious concussion” as his injury of the day. 

After this latest setback, it is unclear where Ortiz goes from here. 

The news certainly puts a damper on Bellator’s biggest event to date, as Jackson and Ortiz are both serious stars in the sport, regardless of their recent success (or lack thereof). 

Thankfully, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney and Co. loaded up with a stellar co-main event in Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler II, so all is not yet lost for fans of the Bellator brand. 

Stay tuned for the next updates as they are uncovered. 

 

Like MMA, heavy metal or life’s absurdities? 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

28-0 Featherweight Phenom Julio Cesar Neves Will Be Cartwheel-Kicking Dudes in Bellator Now


(Finally, we can use the terms “hot prospect” and “Bellator” in the same sentence without being sarcastic. / Photo via Sherdog)

At 19-and-a-half years old, Julio Cesar Neves Junior is off to the fastest start in MMA history. In just two years of professional competition, the Brazilian featherweight prodigy has compiled a 28-0 record, with 25 wins by stoppage. “Morceguinho” has already blown past the career-opening win streaks posted by Megumi Fujii (who won her first 22 fights) and Khabib Nurmagomedov (who’s won 21 and counting), and he’s within arm’s reach of the 32-fight win streak that Igor Vovchanchyn earned from 1996-1999 — to date the longest MMA win streak unbroken by draws or no-contests.

We first introduced you to Neves back in August, when he picked up his 26th win by Capoeira cartwheel-kicking the shit out of Dener Dos Santos. “We have a feeling this one will get him noticed by the big leagues,” we wrote…and indeed it has. MMAFighting informs us that Neves has just signed a contract with Bellator, and will make his promotional debut at an event to be named later.

Alright, so maybe Bellator isn’t the biggest of big leagues, but it’s a hell of an opportunity for a teenager from Santa Catarina. According to MMAFighting, Neves is the younger brother of Rafael “Morcego” Silva, who won Bellator’s 2013 Summer Series Bantamweight Tournament this year, and is riding an impressive 13-fight win streak himself. Can the Morcego/guinho brothers become the next Pitbull brothers? And how much longer will Neves’s win streak last now that he’ll be facing a higher level of competition?


(Finally, we can use the terms “hot prospect” and “Bellator” in the same sentence without being sarcastic. / Photo via Sherdog)

At 19-and-a-half years old, Julio Cesar Neves Junior is off to the fastest start in MMA history. In just two years of professional competition, the Brazilian featherweight prodigy has compiled a 28-0 record, with 25 wins by stoppage. “Morceguinho” has already blown past the career-opening win streaks posted by Megumi Fujii (who won her first 22 fights) and Khabib Nurmagomedov (who’s won 21 and counting), and he’s within arm’s reach of the 32-fight win streak that Igor Vovchanchyn earned from 1996-1999 — to date the longest MMA win streak unbroken by draws or no-contests.

We first introduced you to Neves back in August, when he picked up his 26th win by Capoeira cartwheel-kicking the shit out of Dener Dos Santos. “We have a feeling this one will get him noticed by the big leagues,” we wrote…and indeed it has. MMAFighting informs us that Neves has just signed a contract with Bellator, and will make his promotional debut at an event to be named later.

Alright, so maybe Bellator isn’t the biggest of big leagues, but it’s a hell of an opportunity for a teenager from Santa Catarina. According to MMAFighting, Neves is the younger brother of Rafael “Morcego” Silva, who won Bellator’s 2013 Summer Series Bantamweight Tournament this year, and is riding an impressive 13-fight win streak himself. Can the Morcego/guinho brothers become the next Pitbull brothers? And how much longer will Neves’s win streak last now that he’ll be facing a higher level of competition?