By: Rich Bergeron
The only organization in Mixed Martial Arts that still tries to really compete with The Ultimate Fighting Championship is Bellator MMA. Yet, their latest maneuverings seem wholly defensive, and all hopes of the giant Viacom conglomerate taking this league to lofty new heights now seem inevitably doomed.
Some of the second-fiddle organization's fans might blame the recently-deposed Bjorn Rebney, the Former CEO of Bellator. Rebney reportedly let his mouth write a few checks his backers couldn't cash, especially in light of recent reports from Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's camp. Rebney did his best to capitalize on the Viacom connection, promising fighters like Jackson and "King" Mo Lawal opportunities with TNA Wrestling when that promotion was also running on the same Spike TV network that broadcasts all Bellator shows. Today, TNA is relegated to the Destination America channel, which commands less than half the audience of Spike.
Though Jackson stood by Rebney and seemed obviously distraught when the man who recruited him left the promotion, Lawal famously accused his then-acting boss (on Spike TV's air) of "dick riding" his new rival. It would be easy to imagine what Dana White would do in Rebney's place if one of his fighters pulled such a stunt on a UFC show. Rebney did absolutely nothing to discipline Lawal for his blatant disrespect and salty language. That incident itself didn't inspire his Viacom bosses to tell Rebney to take a hike, but it likely hastened Rebney's departure from the promotion he founded. The whole debacle, which concluded with Former Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker taking Bellator's reigns, won the distinction of being dubbed Sherdog's 2014 Story of the Year.
Coker traditionally gets all the credit for the success of Strikeforce, despite the crumbling of the promotion after the UFC purchased the entire operation. While many Strikeforce fighters made the quick transition to the UFC in the wake of the fold up, Coker ended up getting lost in the shuffle. Still, Dana White's history with Coker is all positive, and he's obviously still appreciative of Coker's efforts with Strikeforce. Rebney often drew White's ire, to the point where "The Baldfather" typically referred to the rival CEO as "Bjork." Dana obviously doesn't harbor the same animosity when it comes to Coker.
Still, the UFC is by no means above taking every opportunity available to acquire Bellator's best and most-recognized fighters. Eddie Alvarez came over to the UFC recently after a long, arduous and unsuccessful court battle to obtain his services even earlier. Rampage Jackson's Bellator contract didn't stop him from jumping ship, but Coker's response to the announced defection indicated that Bellator may be willing to fight for their rights to Rampage in another court setting.
Bellator is no stranger itself to poaching former UFC fighters, but to my knowledge it's never been done by that promotion with any fighter who is still under UFC contract. Even in Rampage's situation, though, there's not a whole lot of back and forth banter between Coker and White over this or any other issue. It's all being approached in a much more professional manner than we're used to seeing "Uncle Dana" treat past competitors:
The UFC likely has no chance to buy out or completely kill Bellator, but the top dog MMA company doesn't have to. First of all, Bellator is not an actual threat to the UFC model. Their free fights don't typically compete with UFC offerings, and the Pay-Per-View model Bellator experimented with in 2014 failed miserably. Secondly, Bellator is doing a fantastic job of making itself look irrelevant and hopeless.
Consider Coker's recent boasting about trying to recruit WWE Wrestler and Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar to be the biggest fish in his little pond. On top of this, Coker went out on a limb and admitted he is also making a run at convincing Fedor Emelianenko to come out of retirement to fight for Bellator. It seems obvious to most experts in the combat sports media that Coker has absolutely zero chance to land either fighter, so flapping his jaws about these signings being somehow possible is clearly going to backfire when nothing happens on either front.
For his part, Fedor commented in an interview with MMA Junkie this past September that he is done fighting, and only God can change that:
As far as Lesnar goes, money talks. The UFC can offer Pay-Per-View revenue sharing, huge sponsorship opportunities (just maybe not with Bud Light), a familiar management structure, and a much higher purse per fight for their former champ. Though Viacom is a vast conglomerate with tremendous wealth and net worth, fight purses still remain much lower than the UFC for even the best fighters under contract. Even though they could make an exception for Lesnar, it's doubtful they could provide a more attractive offer than the UFC.
Even more important than the money factor is the level of competition. Brock Lesnar will not leave the WWE wrestling ring and resume his MMA career just to be a paper champion by beating a few tomato cans. If he does launch an MMA comeback, it's a no-brainer to conclude that his reasoning will have something to do with wanting to prove he can be the best in the world. The best heavyweights are in the UFC, period. The only intriguing match-up for Brock in Bellator is Bobby Lashley.
Brock was not at his peak physical health during his first UFC stint, and maybe he now realizes he has one final window to prove that was the only reason he ultimately could not compete with guys like Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem. Still, all this talk of coming back to the MMA fold could just be a publicity stunt perpetrated by Lesnar's camp to drive up the price of his contract renewal with WWE. After all, I have not seen any article quoting Lesnar himself on the subject of where he will land when his wrestling contract expires in March. Most of the conclusions spread across wrestling and combat sports media circles regarding Lesnar's UFC transition point to WWE officials speculating that is what he will do. Yet, recent reports indicate Dana White has yet to have any actual conversations with Lesnar to discuss the conditions of a comeback. That doesn't make much sense. If he's really ready to leave the staged world of pro-wrestling behind, you'd think he'd make a call to White to talk about it. I'm more inclined to think Lesnar is wary of acquiring any more permanent facial scars, and it's going to be an easy decision for him to stay with the promotion that made him famous in the first place. Either way, Lesnar will never sign with Bellator.
Bellator is also about to see one of their most prominent sponsors (Monster) sign on with the UFC. Typically, this means it will have to be an exclusive arrangement. This makes more sense than trying to continue the charade of pretending Xyience and their "Xenergy" drink was a stand-alone sponsor of the UFC (It was actually owned by the same Fertittas who own the UFC). Monster does conflict with NOS, which sponsors UFC programming on Fox and Fox Sports 1, but there doesn't appear to be any direct UFC relationship with the company.
The class-action fighter lawsuits filed in late December make specific mention of how the UFC operates with their sponsors, typically forcing those companies to cease doing business with other promotions if they want to associate with the UFC. Whether or not the UFC will be open to allowing Bellator and Monster to continue their relationship in this situation remains to be seen. The writing on the wall points to Bellator having to shop for a new energy drink sponsor, though.
The UFC had its share of Pay-Per-View struggles in 2014, but that is just one small segment of their business. There are plenty of revenue streams available to appease fighters currently under UFC contract. The organization is forcing a new Reebok uniform policy on fighters that is already leading to major complications with multiple smaller sponsors, but the UFC brass promises "virtually all" the Reebok money will go directly to the fighters. Unless the uniform situation or the class action lawsuits come back to bite them, the mini-revolution against the UFC that started with the Tito Ortiz and Rampage Jackson defections now appears to be fully extinguished. Any chance for Bellator to gain ground on the UFC now seems lost.
Bellator just seems to be squandering all the recent gains they made, and Scott Coker's misguided leadership isn't helping the situation. Conspiracy theorists who look at this situation might even say Coker could be purposely driving his new employer into the ground. Of course, it's highly doubtful he's actually a UFC plant, but Coker's actions would definitely make more sense if that were true.
I honestly cannot see a scenario where Bellator would completely fold, but consider how unlikely it seemed that Affliction would fall apart with backers like Oscar De La Hoya and Donald Trump. It is very disappointing and concerning to see no major benefits materialize from Bellator being backed by Viacom compared to when the promotion's fight cards were just featured on a Viacom network. Rebney obviously had some big plans to take full advantage of the partnership with such a strong conglomerate, but putting his dreams into practice didn't pan out.
Even though Rebney's tournament model wasn't going to work out in the long run, he had the right idea about exploring unique contract opportunities through leveraging Viacom's partnership. The UFC has a huge contract with the Fox network in addition to offering their own exclusive viewing platform (Fight Pass) and garnering millions from Pay-Per-View sales. Fighters who make names for themselves in that environment don't need a Viacom in the picture to get more payment opportunities. Think of all the coaches who were able to get extra recognition and pay from appearing on The Ultimate Fighter. Fox employs multiple fighters as analysts as well. Dominick Cruz landed his Fox job when he was sidelined with one of his multiple knee injuries. Dan Hardy last fought at the end of September, 2012, but he works for the UFC as a color commentator and post-fight interviewer whenever the promotion travels to the UK region.
Ronda Rousey is already becoming a popular movie star, even while she defends her UFC championship belt in dominant fashion. She's appearing in the 2015 Entourage movie, and she is coming fresh off a starring role in the latest Expendables film.Georges St. Pierre is on an extended break from UFC competition, but he's also appearing in a remake of Kickboxer during his time off. Even without a major motion picture company under the UFC's direct ownership, current and former UFC fighters still manage to pick up roles in movies. Viacom has no excuse for not being able to provide Bellator stars more opportunities to break into Hollywood since they actually do own their own studio.
One of the reasons Rampage went back to what he called "the devil you know" related to his frustrations with Viacom's failure to follow through on a planned reality show, TNA wrestling opportunities, and additional movie roles through Viacom's interests in that arena. Viacom's ownership of Paramount Pictures should have made it easy for them to provide Jackson the chance to appear on the silver screen again. Though it was his UFC popularity that helped him get his first major role in The A-Team movie, the UFC did not approach that situation with a cooperative attitude. It was one of Jackson's biggest beefs with his old bosses. At the time, it seemed that the promotion didn't want to see their fighters make the Hollywood transition for good once they realized it would be much easier and more lucrative than fighting for a living. This potential permanent defection obviously became much more of a threat when the UFC's efforts to lure Gina Carano back to fighting fell apart.
Whether Viacom's failure to appease Jackson had anything to do with fear of losing his fighting services is unknown, but even losing Jackson as a fighter would be better than losing him to the UFC after he made such a poignant and potent argument against his former bosses. On top of the loss, other fighters who would otherwise be willing to jump the UFC ship will no doubt be discouraged by Viacom's failure to retain Rampage. This creates an environment where Viacom continues to minimize their advantages over the competition, alienating their fighters in the process and inspiring them to look for greener pastures. Rather than grow and thrive under this huge corporation, Bellator is remaining stagnant and possibly even losing ground in the combat sports niche. Even their "Fight Master" reality show backfired on them when the winner Joe Riggs recently signed with the UFC again thanks to Bellator's help getting him back on the MMA map.
The worst part of Bellator's current reality is they can't really blame the UFC's dominance of the marketplace for their troubles in the industry. Their own actions and failure to act in key situations is what brought them to where they are today, forever locked in a losing battle. Barring a miraculous 2015 turnaround, Bellator's star may continue to fall until Viacom sells the promotion or simply pulls the plug and lets Dana White add a new name to his tombstone.
To prevent the total loss of their hefty investment, Viacom must take a more capitalistic approach in the new year. Scott Coker has to stop trying to accomplish the impossible and focus on what he actually has the power to change and improve. Bellator's whole management team needs to convince Viacom to go all in and spend some money to make some money. Of all the excuses people come up with for not having any interest in MMA, the top one is typically that they just don't know enough about the fighters. This is precisely the area where Viacom is best-suited to make an impact, but so far they've shown they can't even corner their own market. Bellator also needs to stop throwing all their hard work in recruiting top talent out the window.
The only logical excuse their parent company has for failing to elevate the brand is that the company executives just don't have the passion it takes to build a truly dominant MMA promotion out of what they currently have. If that's not the source of the problem, only outright incompetence can explain the current state of Bellator's affairs. Either way, it will take some deep investments and much more hard work in the MMA trenches to at least maintain the appearance that Bellator is still a direct UFC competitor.
The only organization in Mixed Martial Arts that still tries to really compete with The Ultimate Fighting Championship is Bellator MMA. Yet, their latest maneuverings seem wholly defensive, and all hopes of the giant Viacom conglomerate taking this league to lofty new heights now seem inevitably doomed.
Some of the second-fiddle organization's fans might blame the recently-deposed Bjorn Rebney, the Former CEO of Bellator. Rebney reportedly let his mouth write a few checks his backers couldn't cash, especially in light of recent reports from Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's camp. Rebney did his best to capitalize on the Viacom connection, promising fighters like Jackson and "King" Mo Lawal opportunities with TNA Wrestling when that promotion was also running on the same Spike TV network that broadcasts all Bellator shows. Today, TNA is relegated to the Destination America channel, which commands less than half the audience of Spike.
Though Jackson stood by Rebney and seemed obviously distraught when the man who recruited him left the promotion, Lawal famously accused his then-acting boss (on Spike TV's air) of "dick riding" his new rival. It would be easy to imagine what Dana White would do in Rebney's place if one of his fighters pulled such a stunt on a UFC show. Rebney did absolutely nothing to discipline Lawal for his blatant disrespect and salty language. That incident itself didn't inspire his Viacom bosses to tell Rebney to take a hike, but it likely hastened Rebney's departure from the promotion he founded. The whole debacle, which concluded with Former Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker taking Bellator's reigns, won the distinction of being dubbed Sherdog's 2014 Story of the Year.
Coker traditionally gets all the credit for the success of Strikeforce, despite the crumbling of the promotion after the UFC purchased the entire operation. While many Strikeforce fighters made the quick transition to the UFC in the wake of the fold up, Coker ended up getting lost in the shuffle. Still, Dana White's history with Coker is all positive, and he's obviously still appreciative of Coker's efforts with Strikeforce. Rebney often drew White's ire, to the point where "The Baldfather" typically referred to the rival CEO as "Bjork." Dana obviously doesn't harbor the same animosity when it comes to Coker.
Still, the UFC is by no means above taking every opportunity available to acquire Bellator's best and most-recognized fighters. Eddie Alvarez came over to the UFC recently after a long, arduous and unsuccessful court battle to obtain his services even earlier. Rampage Jackson's Bellator contract didn't stop him from jumping ship, but Coker's response to the announced defection indicated that Bellator may be willing to fight for their rights to Rampage in another court setting.
Bellator is no stranger itself to poaching former UFC fighters, but to my knowledge it's never been done by that promotion with any fighter who is still under UFC contract. Even in Rampage's situation, though, there's not a whole lot of back and forth banter between Coker and White over this or any other issue. It's all being approached in a much more professional manner than we're used to seeing "Uncle Dana" treat past competitors:
The UFC likely has no chance to buy out or completely kill Bellator, but the top dog MMA company doesn't have to. First of all, Bellator is not an actual threat to the UFC model. Their free fights don't typically compete with UFC offerings, and the Pay-Per-View model Bellator experimented with in 2014 failed miserably. Secondly, Bellator is doing a fantastic job of making itself look irrelevant and hopeless.
Consider Coker's recent boasting about trying to recruit WWE Wrestler and Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar to be the biggest fish in his little pond. On top of this, Coker went out on a limb and admitted he is also making a run at convincing Fedor Emelianenko to come out of retirement to fight for Bellator. It seems obvious to most experts in the combat sports media that Coker has absolutely zero chance to land either fighter, so flapping his jaws about these signings being somehow possible is clearly going to backfire when nothing happens on either front.
For his part, Fedor commented in an interview with MMA Junkie this past September that he is done fighting, and only God can change that:
“I already fought my share,” Emelianenko said. “God gave me a rich and eventful career. I gave God everything. I’m done fighting. Only God’s will (can bring me back).”
As far as Lesnar goes, money talks. The UFC can offer Pay-Per-View revenue sharing, huge sponsorship opportunities (just maybe not with Bud Light), a familiar management structure, and a much higher purse per fight for their former champ. Though Viacom is a vast conglomerate with tremendous wealth and net worth, fight purses still remain much lower than the UFC for even the best fighters under contract. Even though they could make an exception for Lesnar, it's doubtful they could provide a more attractive offer than the UFC.
Even more important than the money factor is the level of competition. Brock Lesnar will not leave the WWE wrestling ring and resume his MMA career just to be a paper champion by beating a few tomato cans. If he does launch an MMA comeback, it's a no-brainer to conclude that his reasoning will have something to do with wanting to prove he can be the best in the world. The best heavyweights are in the UFC, period. The only intriguing match-up for Brock in Bellator is Bobby Lashley.
Brock was not at his peak physical health during his first UFC stint, and maybe he now realizes he has one final window to prove that was the only reason he ultimately could not compete with guys like Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem. Still, all this talk of coming back to the MMA fold could just be a publicity stunt perpetrated by Lesnar's camp to drive up the price of his contract renewal with WWE. After all, I have not seen any article quoting Lesnar himself on the subject of where he will land when his wrestling contract expires in March. Most of the conclusions spread across wrestling and combat sports media circles regarding Lesnar's UFC transition point to WWE officials speculating that is what he will do. Yet, recent reports indicate Dana White has yet to have any actual conversations with Lesnar to discuss the conditions of a comeback. That doesn't make much sense. If he's really ready to leave the staged world of pro-wrestling behind, you'd think he'd make a call to White to talk about it. I'm more inclined to think Lesnar is wary of acquiring any more permanent facial scars, and it's going to be an easy decision for him to stay with the promotion that made him famous in the first place. Either way, Lesnar will never sign with Bellator.
Bellator is also about to see one of their most prominent sponsors (Monster) sign on with the UFC. Typically, this means it will have to be an exclusive arrangement. This makes more sense than trying to continue the charade of pretending Xyience and their "Xenergy" drink was a stand-alone sponsor of the UFC (It was actually owned by the same Fertittas who own the UFC). Monster does conflict with NOS, which sponsors UFC programming on Fox and Fox Sports 1, but there doesn't appear to be any direct UFC relationship with the company.
The class-action fighter lawsuits filed in late December make specific mention of how the UFC operates with their sponsors, typically forcing those companies to cease doing business with other promotions if they want to associate with the UFC. Whether or not the UFC will be open to allowing Bellator and Monster to continue their relationship in this situation remains to be seen. The writing on the wall points to Bellator having to shop for a new energy drink sponsor, though.
The UFC had its share of Pay-Per-View struggles in 2014, but that is just one small segment of their business. There are plenty of revenue streams available to appease fighters currently under UFC contract. The organization is forcing a new Reebok uniform policy on fighters that is already leading to major complications with multiple smaller sponsors, but the UFC brass promises "virtually all" the Reebok money will go directly to the fighters. Unless the uniform situation or the class action lawsuits come back to bite them, the mini-revolution against the UFC that started with the Tito Ortiz and Rampage Jackson defections now appears to be fully extinguished. Any chance for Bellator to gain ground on the UFC now seems lost.
Bellator just seems to be squandering all the recent gains they made, and Scott Coker's misguided leadership isn't helping the situation. Conspiracy theorists who look at this situation might even say Coker could be purposely driving his new employer into the ground. Of course, it's highly doubtful he's actually a UFC plant, but Coker's actions would definitely make more sense if that were true.
I honestly cannot see a scenario where Bellator would completely fold, but consider how unlikely it seemed that Affliction would fall apart with backers like Oscar De La Hoya and Donald Trump. It is very disappointing and concerning to see no major benefits materialize from Bellator being backed by Viacom compared to when the promotion's fight cards were just featured on a Viacom network. Rebney obviously had some big plans to take full advantage of the partnership with such a strong conglomerate, but putting his dreams into practice didn't pan out.
Even though Rebney's tournament model wasn't going to work out in the long run, he had the right idea about exploring unique contract opportunities through leveraging Viacom's partnership. The UFC has a huge contract with the Fox network in addition to offering their own exclusive viewing platform (Fight Pass) and garnering millions from Pay-Per-View sales. Fighters who make names for themselves in that environment don't need a Viacom in the picture to get more payment opportunities. Think of all the coaches who were able to get extra recognition and pay from appearing on The Ultimate Fighter. Fox employs multiple fighters as analysts as well. Dominick Cruz landed his Fox job when he was sidelined with one of his multiple knee injuries. Dan Hardy last fought at the end of September, 2012, but he works for the UFC as a color commentator and post-fight interviewer whenever the promotion travels to the UK region.
Ronda Rousey is already becoming a popular movie star, even while she defends her UFC championship belt in dominant fashion. She's appearing in the 2015 Entourage movie, and she is coming fresh off a starring role in the latest Expendables film.Georges St. Pierre is on an extended break from UFC competition, but he's also appearing in a remake of Kickboxer during his time off. Even without a major motion picture company under the UFC's direct ownership, current and former UFC fighters still manage to pick up roles in movies. Viacom has no excuse for not being able to provide Bellator stars more opportunities to break into Hollywood since they actually do own their own studio.
One of the reasons Rampage went back to what he called "the devil you know" related to his frustrations with Viacom's failure to follow through on a planned reality show, TNA wrestling opportunities, and additional movie roles through Viacom's interests in that arena. Viacom's ownership of Paramount Pictures should have made it easy for them to provide Jackson the chance to appear on the silver screen again. Though it was his UFC popularity that helped him get his first major role in The A-Team movie, the UFC did not approach that situation with a cooperative attitude. It was one of Jackson's biggest beefs with his old bosses. At the time, it seemed that the promotion didn't want to see their fighters make the Hollywood transition for good once they realized it would be much easier and more lucrative than fighting for a living. This potential permanent defection obviously became much more of a threat when the UFC's efforts to lure Gina Carano back to fighting fell apart.
Whether Viacom's failure to appease Jackson had anything to do with fear of losing his fighting services is unknown, but even losing Jackson as a fighter would be better than losing him to the UFC after he made such a poignant and potent argument against his former bosses. On top of the loss, other fighters who would otherwise be willing to jump the UFC ship will no doubt be discouraged by Viacom's failure to retain Rampage. This creates an environment where Viacom continues to minimize their advantages over the competition, alienating their fighters in the process and inspiring them to look for greener pastures. Rather than grow and thrive under this huge corporation, Bellator is remaining stagnant and possibly even losing ground in the combat sports niche. Even their "Fight Master" reality show backfired on them when the winner Joe Riggs recently signed with the UFC again thanks to Bellator's help getting him back on the MMA map.
The worst part of Bellator's current reality is they can't really blame the UFC's dominance of the marketplace for their troubles in the industry. Their own actions and failure to act in key situations is what brought them to where they are today, forever locked in a losing battle. Barring a miraculous 2015 turnaround, Bellator's star may continue to fall until Viacom sells the promotion or simply pulls the plug and lets Dana White add a new name to his tombstone.
To prevent the total loss of their hefty investment, Viacom must take a more capitalistic approach in the new year. Scott Coker has to stop trying to accomplish the impossible and focus on what he actually has the power to change and improve. Bellator's whole management team needs to convince Viacom to go all in and spend some money to make some money. Of all the excuses people come up with for not having any interest in MMA, the top one is typically that they just don't know enough about the fighters. This is precisely the area where Viacom is best-suited to make an impact, but so far they've shown they can't even corner their own market. Bellator also needs to stop throwing all their hard work in recruiting top talent out the window.
The only logical excuse their parent company has for failing to elevate the brand is that the company executives just don't have the passion it takes to build a truly dominant MMA promotion out of what they currently have. If that's not the source of the problem, only outright incompetence can explain the current state of Bellator's affairs. Either way, it will take some deep investments and much more hard work in the MMA trenches to at least maintain the appearance that Bellator is still a direct UFC competitor.
