Effective Fight Picture Tip #28: A little blood goes a long way.
Remember a few weeks ago when we told you that Bellator was holding open tryouts in Florida, and pro fighters could go possibly snag a slot on a Bellator card? No? Well, we did. We left it right here on the front page for you, and we don’t want to hear any more about it.
As Bellator’s own website points out, many of their tournament fighters have been guys from tough local scenes that put together a couple of wins and got promoted to the brackets: Kenny Foster, Tyler Stinson, Anthony Lapsley, and Jose Vega among them.
Well, the open tryouts went down June 18th, just like we told you, and MMAJunkie reports that there was one winner out of a field of sixty. While we cannot confirm that Florida ATT prospect Ailton Barbosa fought and defeated 59 men in open combat, we kind of want to believe it. Barbosa is a grappling ace, judging by all of his Facebook pictures of him in his pajamas, so we assume that he subbed most of them, probably with sweet flying guillotines and cool stuff like that.
We’re also told that he went on to kill a raging bull barehanded with a single strike, then flew away under his own power. That’s right, people: Ailton Barbosa has the deadly knowledge of Dim Mak. And he can fly.
Our condolences to the family of whoever he fights at Bellator 50 in September.
[RX]
Effective Fight Picture Tip #28: A little blood goes a long way.
Remember a few weeks ago when we told you that Bellator was holding open tryouts in Florida, and pro fighters could go possibly snag a slot on a Bellator card? No? Well, we did. We left it right here on the front page for you, and we don’t want to hear any more about it.
As Bellator’s own website points out, many of their tournament fighters have been guys from tough local scenes that put together a couple of wins and got promoted to the brackets: Kenny Foster, Tyler Stinson, Anthony Lapsley, and Jose Vega among them.
Well, the open tryouts went down June 18th, just like we told you, and MMAJunkie reports that there was one winner out of a field of sixty. While we cannot confirm that Florida ATT prospect Ailton Barbosa fought and defeated 59 men in open combat, we kind of want to believe it. Barbosa is a grappling ace, judging by all of his Facebook pictures of him in his pajamas, so we assume that he subbed most of them, probably with sweet flying guillotines and cool stuff like that.
We’re also told that he went on to kill a raging bull barehanded with a single strike, then flew away under his own power. That’s right, people: Ailton Barbosa has the deadly knowledge of Dim Mak. And he can fly.
Our condolences to the family of whoever he fights at Bellator 50 in September.
Filed under: BellatorAs I look ahead to the upcoming three-event Bellator Fighting Championships summer series, it’s with a mixture of excitement and disappointment.
Excitement because the fights Bellator has booked in its featherweight division are g…
As I look ahead to the upcoming three-event Bellator Fighting Championships summer series, it’s with a mixture of excitement and disappointment.
Excitement because the fights Bellator has booked in its featherweight division are guaranteed to be spectacular. And disappointment because I know hardly anyone is going to watch.
The Bellator summer series kicks off on Saturday, June 25 with four first-round fights in an eight-man featherweight tournament, and the fights look like a lot of fun. Particularly exciting is the North American debut of Marlon Sandro, the former Sengoku featherweight champion who’s among the sport’s truly elite featherweights, as well as being one of the most exciting fighters in the world in any weight class.
So why won’t anyone notice?
Saturday, June 25, is smack dab in the middle of the busiest time we’ve had all year in MMA. It’s one day before a UFC card on Versus and one day after a Strikeforce event on Showtime. It’s one week after a huge Strikeforce event and one week before UFC 132. Even hard-core MMA fans are starting to overdose on MMA right about now, and if they’re going to skip an event, it’s not going to be a Strikeforce or UFC show. It’s going to be Bellator.
Give Bellator all the credit in the world for the way they’ve acquired talent, put together exciting fights, and consistently delivered tournaments that reach their conclusions as scheduled — never an easy task in MMA. But no matter how good Bellator’s product, it’s really, really hard to gain traction in MMA if you’re outside Zuffa. The UFC is the top dog in MMA by such a large margin that it’s easy to forget there are any other dogs — and especially easy to forget Bellator when it’s sandwiched between Strikeforce and UFC events, and on a network (MTV2) that most MMA fans can’t find without spending a few minutes searching through their channel guide.
If you’re one of the truly hard-core MMA fans — and there’s a good chance that you are, if you’re reading this — you’ll seek out Bellator. I know I will. But I also know I’m in a tiny minority of something around one-tenth of 1 percent of the TV viewing public. If 300,000 people watch Saturday night’s Bellator card, that would represent a success by Bellator’s standards, but it would also represent less than 0.1% of the American population. MMA promotions have gone bankrupt while drawing significantly larger audiences than Bellator draws.
I hope Bellator succeeds. I enjoy their fights and I think it’s good for MMA to have a viable national promotion outside the UFC. But it’s going to be tough, and starting the summer series right now, when MMA fans have so many other options, won’t make things any easier.
For a man who had more submission victories than knockout victories, Christian M’Pumbu became a force at Bellator 42 against Tim Carpenter. M’Pumbu entered the fight coming off of a third-round knockout win in the quarterfinals of Bellator&…
For a man who had more submission victories than knockout victories, Christian M’Pumbu became a force at Bellator 42 against Tim Carpenter.
M’Pumbu entered the fight coming off of a third-round knockout win in the quarterfinals of Bellator’s first ever light heavyweight tournament against Chris Davis.
Carpenter, on the other hand, entered coming off of a split decision victory over Daniel Gracie and was a perfect 7-0.
Now that the scene is set, enter this semifinal matchup at Bellator 42. M’Pumbu threw one nice left hand that landed.
Then, once again, M’Pumbu went to his left hand, which helped set up the devastating right hand that stunned Carpenter. M’Pumbu threw one more right hand that dropped Carpenter and sent M’Pumbu into the finals of the inaugural Bellator light heavyweight tournament.
After this fight Tim Carpenter has yet to have an opponent, coming off of the first loss in his professional MMA career.
M’Pumbu would go on and fight Richard Hale at Bellator 45, and yet again notched another knockout win in the third round to become Bellator’s first ever light heavyweight champion.
M’Pumbu now holds seven career victories by knockout, with three of those coming in each round of the Bellator light heavyweight tournament.
M’Pumbu is currently 18-3-1 with that fight against Hale coming last month.
UFC finally adding Flyweight Divison, signing 125-pounders: here. Spike TV confirms TUF 14 to start with 32 fighters elimated down to 14 and no wild card picks: here. UFC 135 will be headlined by Jon.
Sure, Zuffa has pockets deep enough to write a check for the young up and coming promotion, but would they actually be interested in doing so? What would such an acquisition do for the UFC? Could they convert Bellator’s circular steel to Zuffa’s angular cage? Do they need Bjorn Rebney to come up and teach the finer points of running tournaments? Are guys like Eddie Alvarez, Ben Askren, Joe Warren, and Hector Lombard valuable enough to justify a takeover?
Well, short answer: no. Everyone knows that you can’t octagon a circle, so Zuffa would likely have a handful of round cages with nothing to do with them. Who wants a cage that doesn’t reflect your company’s logo? Come on, people, that’s just elementary.
Come on in past the jump and we’ll lay out our case, woefully uninformed though it may be, as to why Zuffa will not be buying Bellator anytime in the near future. We’ll even open up the floor for comments, if you jerks think you know better than we do. Just remember, if you make us look silly, we’re completely capable of doing humorous things to your log-ins, like adding links to diaper fetish sites and penis pump vendors. You’ve been warned.
“So then I said to Dana, I said, ‘Look, big guy, you take that check, and you roll it up real tight…’”
Sure, Zuffa has pockets deep enough to write a check for the young up and coming promotion, but would they actually be interested in doing so? What would such an acquisition do for the UFC? Could they convert Bellator’s circular steel to Zuffa’s angular cage? Do they need Bjorn Rebney to come up and teach the finer points of running tournaments? Are guys like Eddie Alvarez, Ben Askren, Joe Warren, and Hector Lombard valuable enough to justify a takeover?
Well, short answer: no. Everyone knows that you can’t octagon a circle, so Zuffa would likely have a handful of round cages with nothing to do with them. Who wants a cage that doesn’t reflect your company’s logo? Come on, people, that’s just elementary.
Come on in past the jump and we’ll lay out our case, woefully uninformed though it may be, as to why Zuffa will not be buying Bellator anytime in the near future. We’ll even open up the floor for comments, if you jerks think you know better than we do. Just remember, if you make us look silly, we’re completely capable of doing humorous things to your log-ins, like adding links to diaper fetish sites and penis pump vendors. You’ve been warned.
1. Zuffa doesn’t want or need Bellator’s assets, i.e. fighters’ contracts. Every fighter that steps into the Bellator steel, with only a very few exceptions, already have their eyes set on the UFC. While there are guys like Eddie Alvarez who are more than happy with their pay and treatment, most guys have their sights set on the big money PPV land of the UFC. Likewise, Zuffa is not interested in the library of video owned by Bellator, either. While other acquisitions that Zuffa has made through the years have been influenced by a wealth of primo ass-kicking footage (PRIDE, WEC, IFL, Showtime…mostly PRIDE though), there’s relatively little of interest to the UFC. All due respect to guys like Yahir Reyes, Jose Vega, and Rich Hale, but the UFC has no interest in insane highlights of guys that will likely not ever compete at the UFC level.
2. The UFC needs a developmental resource. Whatever you call it, there has to be a system in place for fighters to gain experience and develop some kind of pro record. If those fighters can get national exposure along the way, all the better. Just look at this list of former King of the Cage champions that have gone on to compete in the UFC that we considered making (we decided against it). While Strikeforce will probably become the minor leagues for the UFC eventually, Bellator’s existence for now serves a helpful purpose to Zuffa.
3. Because Bjorn says “no.” Bellator has been through tough times, but Rebney believes its value is growing strongly. While there is a great deal of speculation that BFC is losing money, executives at MTV2 are reportedly tickled pink with ratings from Bellator. Add to that the talk around pretty much every campfire that Spike expects to lose its relationship with the UFC, and that network suits are taking a look at Bellator to fill the aching hole that will be left behind, and it seems like a fair assumption that there’s growth ahead for the promotion as a whole. Why cash out now?
4. Why buy when you can counter-program? This is where Strikeforce comes in again. Given enough time, there will be fluidity between the UFC and Strikeforce, allowing fighters to be called up from (and sent down to) the minors whenever Joe Silva sees something he wants, or a UFCer needs to pick up a couple of wins. We’re already starting to see these kinds of contracts come out for Strikeforce guys. As a result, there will always be enough established name talent fighting under the Strikeforce banner to put together compelling broadcasts, whether it be on Showtime, network television, or the UFC Channel. That gives Zuffa a very large hammer to aim at any competition that pops up. Dana has already shown that he’ll counter-program his competition — and usually win. If Zuffa ever does look to acquire Bellator, expect a solid counter-programming campaign first.
5. It could look like a monopoly. After Zuffa’s purchase of what was universally seen as the UFC main competition, Strikeforce, rumors have circulated that the Federal Trade Commission was taking a look at Zuffa for possible legal issues, including establishing a monopoly. In our completely informed expert opinion </sarcasm>, it’s the very existence of promotions like Bellator and Shark Fights — smaller MMA organizations that have fair access to the market — that would support Zuffa and the UFC as fair competitors. As far as the other stuff, hey, we’re just hack journalists (which may be one step up from being a “shitsite“), not lawyers. With the benefits of acquiring Bellator being debatable, why give your detractors (and the feds) ammo to use against you?
Disagree? Go ahead and make your case below. Just remember, we’re not above linking your screen name to pictures of Tito’s junk.
New York still ain’t havin’ it with MMA, won’t sanction it in 2011. Shark Fights 15 scoring error in Villasenor vs. Camozzi which resulted in a Draw. New Mexico Commision to declare a winner around.
New York still ain’t havin’ it with MMA, won’t sanction it in 2011.
Shark Fights 15scoring error in Villasenor vs. Camozzi which resulted in a Draw. New Mexico Commision to declare a winner around June 14th.
As I look ahead to the upcoming three-event 
