Bellator 149, which caused some majority controversy, did big ratings for the promotion and Spike TV. Bellator 149 averaged 2 million viewers for the entire 3-hour fight card on Friday, February 19 (9:00-12:04am ET/PT), which shattered the old record held by Bellator 138 with 1.58M viewers. Kimbo Slice vs. “Dada 5000” served as the co-main
Bellator 149, which caused some majority controversy, did big ratings for the promotion and Spike TV. Bellator 149 averaged 2 million viewers for the entire 3-hour fight card on Friday, February 19 (9:00-12:04am ET/PT), which shattered the old record held by Bellator 138 with 1.58M viewers.
Kimbo Slice vs. “Dada 5000” served as the co-main event and was not a very good fight. Both guys were winded and did not put on a very good performance at all. In the main event, Royce Gracie defeated Ken Shamrock after kneeing him in the groin and then finished him off with strikes.
The event peaked during the Slice – Dada fight averaging 2.5 million viewers (11:16pm-11:30pm) and a 2.3 rating with Men 18-34. The main event featuring drew 2.4 million viewers (11:54pm-11:57pm).
The event took place on February 19, 2016, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
Despite the lack of quality, the event drew a ton of interest from not only fight fans, but more importantly casual fans, which what every TV network is looking to grab.
The event had Mike Tyson on commentary for one fight as well as several celebrity in attendance and watching from the comfort of their home. While the event did not have great fights, it drew people in massive quantities and paid off for the promotion and Spike TV.
Bellator 149 marks the fourth Bellator event to draw over a million viewers. Bellator 138 (headlined by Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice), Bellator 131, (headlined by Tito Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar), and Bellator 106 (Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler) all drew over one million viewers.
The promotion has not announced the next “fun fight,” which is what Bellator MMA President Scott Coker calls them, but with numbers like this, it’s just a matter of time before we have another event like Bellator 149.
Last week, we expressed the less-than-popular opinion that the booking of Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 in the co-main event of Bellator 149 was perhaps the greatest matchmaking move in the promotion’s history. Our main argument was that, by booking such a clearly ridiculous, freakshow of a fight, Scott Coker was declaring once and for all that his promotion would not be attempting to compete with the UFC in terms of legitimate talent moving forward, but would instead be cashing in on the millennial driven, “so-bad-it’s-good” market that has begun to dominate the film and television industries in recent years.
With Slice vs. Dada now in the rearview mirror, we think it would be safe to say that we were right on the money.
Last week, we expressed the less-than-popular opinion that the booking of Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 in the co-main event of Bellator 149 was perhaps the greatest matchmaking move in the promotion’s history. Our main argument was that, by booking such a clearly ridiculous, freakshow of a fight, Scott Coker was declaring once and for all that his promotion would not be attempting to compete with the UFC in terms of legitimate talent moving forward, but would instead be cashing in on the millennial driven, “so-bad-it’s-good” market that has begun to dominate the film and television industries in recent years.
With Slice vs. Dada now in the rearview mirror, we think it would be safe to say that we were right on the money.
How bad was Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000? Arguably one of the worst fights that the sport has ever seen, yet also on par for what you would expect from two near-40 year-old street fighters with limited MMA training. It was a fight wherein both competitors gassed out within the opening minute, yet valiantly continued (struggled) on for 13 more. It was a fight that appeared to take place underwater and was capped off by a hilarious non-finish that would’ve turned Ric Flair green with envy.
The reactions may have been scathing, but if there’s one thing that Slice vs. Dada did, it’s get us talking. Early indications are that Bellator 149 was a huge hit among its coveted demographics and the fight itself is still trending on Twitter. In its failure to entertain, Slice vs. Dada quickly became the most entertaining fight of the weekend for some of us, and you have to imagine that it was exactly what Scott Coker wanted when he booked it in the first place.
Of course, it didn’t come without a cost. Our gleeful takedown of the fight was soon followed by general concern for Dada 5000, who was carried out of the event on a stretcher and later rushed to critical condition due to renal failure. As it turns out, the 40 pounds that Dhafir Harris had dropped in the lead-up to the fight had taken its toll on his body, and he nearly lost his life as a result. It was a sobering turn of events, and one that has led to even greater backlash from the MMA community. While the finger rightfully has been pointed at Bellator for booking this fight, it could (and should) just as easily be pointed at the Texas athletic commission that allowed Harris to step into the cage after a 5-year absence when his body was clearly not ready for it.
At the end of the day, we highly doubt that Dada’s near-death experience will do anything to curb Bellator matchmaking moving forward. The promotion is shifting ever-further away from “legitimacy” in an attempt to give us guilty pleasure fights, and that’s exactly what it did last weekend. Regardless of how those fights turned out, you can bet your bottom dollar that the reputation of MMA’s second most popular promotion didn’t suffer in the slightest for it. I mean, what else could we have possibly expected? A high-level display of technical mixed martial arts? A slick submission? Outrage may be the fuel that powers the Internet, but it will ultimately be rendered meaningless as long as keep tuning in (and we will).
Of course, then came the evening’s main event, which pitted 49-year-old Ken Shamrock against 51-year-old Royce Gracie. Whereas Slice vs. Dada had at least the potential to end in crowd-pleasing fashion, this fight did not and played out accordingly.
What is there to even discuss, really? Gracie came out in the same flat-footed stance he’s been using since the early 90′s and Shamrock went down in the same mysteriously fishy fashion that he has in his last umpteen fights. Was Gracie’s fight-ending shot below the belt? Will Shamrock’s appeal see the light of day? Who gives a sh*t. We never needed Gracie vs. Shamrock III and we certainly don’t need a fourth go at it, so let’s just be thankful that this thing ended early and without either guy being carried out on a stretcher. In this latest incarnation of Bellator, that’s clearly a higher water mark than we’ll be able to set moving forward.
Main card
Royce Gracie def. Ken Shamrock via first-round TKO (2:22) (live blog)
Kimbo Slice def. Dada 5000 via third-round TKO (1:32) (live blog)
Derek Campos def. Melvin Guillard via second-round TKO (0:32)
Linton Vassell def. Emanuel Newton via unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27 x2)
Emanuel Sanchez def. Daniel Pineda via split decision (28-29, 29-27, 29-28)
Undercard
Justin Wren def. Juan Torres via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Jeremy Mahon def. Davis Sylvester via TKO (R3, 4:22)
C.J. Hancock def. Ruben Esparsa via submission (rear-naked choke) (R3, 1:26)
Adrian Yanez vs. Ryan Hollis via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Isaac Villanueva def. Richard Knepp via knockout (R1, 0:42)
Mike Trinh def. Angel Zamora via submission (armbar) (R1, 3:49)
Jason Langellier def. Anthony Ivy via submission (anaconda choke) (R1, 2:09)
Manny Lozoya def. Jacob Norsworthy via submission (guillotine) (R1, 2:33)
Ken Shamrock was pretty upset about how his Bellator 149 fight ended with Royce Gracie as he was kneed in the groin and then to the head, which saw him fall, and Gracie finished the fight with strikes. However, at the post-fight press conference, Shamrock seemed to calm down and be okay with how the
Ken Shamrock was pretty upset about how his Bellator 149 fight ended with Royce Gracie as he was kneed in the groin and then to the head, which saw him fall, and Gracie finished the fight with strikes. However, at the post-fight press conference, Shamrock seemed to calm down and be okay with how the fight ended.
“I got kneed in the nuts….I don’t know what else to say,” Shamrock said.
Shamrock made it clear though that it was not Gracie’s fault that the fight was stopped, but rather the referee’s fault.
“I apologized to Royce and his corner because it wasn’t his fault,” Shamrock said. “He was doing what he had to do. But I wanted this fight. It bothered me a lot, because I figured that in a main event fight with something like this, you have all those fans there, they’re waiting to see us end this our way, and all he had to do was stop and give me a chance to recover, tuck my nuts back in and go again.
“That’s all that had to happen. Instead, they call the fight? I mean, it was pretty clear to me.”
Shamrock believes that this feud is not over because that’s not the way he wanted the fight to end if he was Gracie. If he were Gracie, he would have given him time to recover and not finish the fight.
“In my opinion, it’s not over,” Shamrock said. “I wouldn’t want to win that way. If it was me, personally, if I had hit somebody in the nuts and they went down – I knew that I hit them in the nuts – I would probably put my hands up and go, ‘Sorry’ out of reaction, out of a reaction, out of courtesy. Out of a reaction, I would’ve went, ‘Whoa. Sorry, dude.’ and given him time to get his five minutes to recover. That’s what I would’ve done.”
Bellator 149: Shamrock vs. Gracie took place on February 19, 2016, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The event aired live in prime time on Spike TV.
Ken Shamrock was pretty upset about how his Bellator 149 fight ended with Royce Gracie as he was kneed in the groin and then to the head, which saw him fall, and Gracie finished the fight with strikes. However, at the post-fight press conference, Shamrock seemed to calm down and be okay with how the
Ken Shamrock was pretty upset about how his Bellator 149 fight ended with Royce Gracie as he was kneed in the groin and then to the head, which saw him fall, and Gracie finished the fight with strikes. However, at the post-fight press conference, Shamrock seemed to calm down and be okay with how the fight ended.
“I got kneed in the nuts….I don’t know what else to say,” Shamrock said.
Shamrock made it clear though that it was not Gracie’s fault that the fight was stopped, but rather the referee’s fault.
“I apologized to Royce and his corner because it wasn’t his fault,” Shamrock said. “He was doing what he had to do. But I wanted this fight. It bothered me a lot, because I figured that in a main event fight with something like this, you have all those fans there, they’re waiting to see us end this our way, and all he had to do was stop and give me a chance to recover, tuck my nuts back in and go again.
“That’s all that had to happen. Instead, they call the fight? I mean, it was pretty clear to me.”
Shamrock believes that this feud is not over because that’s not the way he wanted the fight to end if he was Gracie. If he were Gracie, he would have given him time to recover and not finish the fight.
“In my opinion, it’s not over,” Shamrock said. “I wouldn’t want to win that way. If it was me, personally, if I had hit somebody in the nuts and they went down – I knew that I hit them in the nuts – I would probably put my hands up and go, ‘Sorry’ out of reaction, out of a reaction, out of courtesy. Out of a reaction, I would’ve went, ‘Whoa. Sorry, dude.’ and given him time to get his five minutes to recover. That’s what I would’ve done.”
Bellator 149: Shamrock vs. Gracie took place on February 19, 2016, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The event aired live in prime time on Spike TV.
There are nights when, as a writer, I wish the first rule of “Fight Club” was a commandment that could not be flouted. If it was, I wouldn’t have to write about the Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock Bellator 149 main event as if it mattered in any meaningf…
There are nights when, as a writer, I wish the first rule of “Fight Club” was a commandment that could not be flouted. If it was, I wouldn’t have to write about the Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock Bellator 149 main event as if it mattered in any meaningful way. The fight was a bad idea at its inception; the in-cage quality was just as poor.
For the record, the 49-year-old Gracie won via controversial TKO at 2:22 of the first round, marking the first knockout of a career that spans over two decades. The result hardly matters. This experiment of what essentially boils down to a seniors division needs to end.
Gracie entered the cage looking old and doughy, didn’t bother taping his hands for the fight and only got the win after dropping the 52-year-old Shamrock with an illegal low blow. Referee Jacob Montalvo did not see the knee land below the belt, and Shamrock basically collapsed to the ground and ate a few hammerfists before the bout was stopped.
It wasn’t particularly compelling, convincing or even competitive, and Gracie, who at least has kept his hitman bearing after all these years, was wholly unmoved by the controversy.
“I was telling Ken, ‘We come from an era of no time limit, no weight division, no gloves, no rules,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “Groin shots were allowed. But it did not catch his groin.”
His opponent (and the replay) said otherwise, and an angry Shamrock exploded after the stoppage, screaming at Gracie, “You did it on purpose” multiple times as his corner and commission members pulled him away.
Shamrock eventually calmed himself and apologized for the outburst, but after spending the week explaining his long-held grudge, you best believe that the fight accomplished nothing except to possibly set up yet another match between them.
“In my opinion it’s not over,” Shamrock said in the post-fight press conference. “I wouldn’t want to win that way. If I hit somebody in the nuts and I knew I hit them in the nuts, I would say sorry and give him his time, his five minutes to recover. That’s what I would have done.”
The inconclusive finish served as a fitting ending to a bizarrely entertaining but ultimately embarrassing event.
There was always a possibility the night would go like this. Shamrock and Gracie entered the cage at a combined age of 102 years old, and without a single win between them in the last five years.
Below them on the card was a fight between 42-year-old Kimbo Slice and 38-year-old Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris, a street fighter who had never before competed in major MMA, and who had looked out of his element in the two pro fights he had. Somewhat predictably, he managed to put on possibly the worst striking display ever seen in major MMA.
The fight started out slow, turning sloppy before veering into total absurdity, so much so that at some point, it completely transformed into comedy. By the end, a fatigued Dada was wobbling and teetering wildly, clearly ready to be knocked out, except for the fact that Slice did not have the energy reserves to finish the job. Finally, after Slice swung and missed a few haymakers, Dada basically stumbled and collapsed into a TKO by exhaustion.
The upshot of this, which mostly gets forgotten in the cheap laughs generated, is that these are men risking their health to do this. The sport is dangerous enough for healthy and conditioned athletes; there should be no place for glorified weekend warriors at the highest levels.
If you have any kind of objective tendencies, you have to ask yourself, what is the end game here? You cannot continue to raise sunken ships and expect bigger numbers to climb aboard.
This kind of card can work on one condition: when you are using it to shine a light on your next generation. But curiously, this was a tentpole event without any youth featured. It was just a ratings ploy, plain and simple.
In that way, it probably succeeded. The fight had huge social media engagement, at one point hitting the top spot of Twitter’s worldwide trends. That’s nice, but will the chatter matter past Friday night? Did Bellator make any long-term fans, or was it the night’s punchline?
What the Bellator and Spike executives thought of the whole night, we do not know. When they were asked in the post-fight press conference if this was the kind of event they wanted to continue delivering to the world, Bellator president Scott Coker deferred to Spike senior vice president Jon Slusser, who offered a generic answer about producing entertaining events.
Entertaining? Yes, that is definitely one way to characterize it, albeit not the most accurate one. It was, as I described before the event, a circus.
And as anyone who has ever been to the circus knows, when you bring the show to town, it is usually fun, but there is always manure left behind.
In their first encounter 22 years ago, Ken Shamrock felt he got robbed against Royce Gracie. It appeared to be a repeat of history all over again Friday night, as Shamrock lost to Gracie by TKO in the first round at Bellator 149 in Houston.
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In their first encounter 22 years ago, Ken Shamrock felt he got robbed against Royce Gracie. It appeared to be a repeat of history all over again Friday night, as Shamrock lost to Gracie by TKO in the first round at Bellator 149 in Houston.
Gracie earned his first TKO win with two minutes, 38 seconds remaining in the first round, but it came with controversy. When the replay aired, it appeared Gracie kneed Shamrock below the belt, which gave Gracie the edge to take him to the ground and end the fight.
Shamrock went for a knee to the midsection, but it did not faze Gracie. The referee, looking directly at the action, did not make the call, via Trevor Robb of the Edmonton Sun:
A displeased Shamrock claimed Gracie intentionally hit him illegally, per Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com:
When being interviewed after the fight, Gracie did not seem to be in the right frame of mind to celebrate his victory, per Helwani:
In November 1993, at UFC 1, Shamrock and Gracie met for the first time. Shamrock, who wore his wrestling shoes in previous fights, was told by promoters he could not do such this time around, per MMAJunkie.com. Shamrock lost 57 seconds in the first round due to a rear-naked choke.
Two years later the two met again, only to battle to a draw in a judgeless fight that held the UFC record in pay-per-view buys for 10 years, per Dave Meltzer of MMAFighting.com.
With the fighters’ combined ages at 101 years old (Shamrock at 52, Gracie at 49), and meeting for the first time in over 20 years, there was a lot of buildup to the fight. But UFC fighter Andre Fili thinks mixed martial arts took some steps back after this display, as well as the fight prior between Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000:
Shamrock, a former WWE Intercontinental champion, received some support from WWE Hall of Fame commentator Jim Ross after the fight concluded:
Gracie improved to 15-2-3 in his career, albeit in a controversial win. Shamrock has now lost two fights in a row, one to Slice and now to Gracie. It’s uncertain if he has any fights left, let alone if he’d want to pursue a fourth match against Gracie, and vice-versa.
