Viacom possibly moving Bellator to CMT.

[Baba Ghanoush]

They had their worst financial year ever in 2017.
That is not success.
if you mean popularity, then you would have to give Bjorn the much bigger budget and see how he does with it

Maybe successful wasn't the right word. "Relevant" might be more appropriate.

 

[FrankieNYC]

Maybe successful wasn't the right word. "Relevant" might be more appropriate.

That is tough to judge, since Coker had a much bigger budget to work with.
Bjorn had to have Viacom agree to sign Rampage & include TV offers to get him.
Coker signed over a dozen big names in 2017 & outbid UFC without Viacom making TV offers.
Who knows how Bjorn would have done with Coker's budget?

 

[Baba Ghanoush]

That is tough to judge, since Coker had a much bigger budget to work with.
Bjorn had to have Viacom agree to sign Rampage & include TV offers to get him.
Coker signed over a dozen big names in 2017 & outbid UFC without Viacom making TV offers.
Who knows how Bjorn would have done with Coker's budget?

Bjorn altogether I feel the organization would be worse off today than Coker. There was a lot of bad blood between Bjorn and a lot of his own fighters. Crap like Vegh's fake injury and other shady nonsense I can't think off the top of my head at the moment would've only gotten increasingly frequent with desperation to improve for Viacom.

 

[skylolow]

Bjorn altogether I feel the organization would be worse off today than Coker. There was a lot of bad blood between Bjorn and a lot of his own fighters. Crap like Vegh's fake injury and other shady nonsense I can't think off the top of my head at the moment would've only gotten increasingly frequent with desperation to improve for Viacom.

Your probably right.

Personally, I was never much of a fan of Bjorn. I thought he was way to headstrong on his tournament model. Guys like Eddie Alvarez are above doing a the tournament over and over if the chips fall that way. Signing a big name and putting them in a tournament against basically a nobody is a recipe for disaster from a promotional stand point and your bottom line if said name fighter loses. Not to mention hard to attract those guys with those tournaments.

Maybe a blend of "tent pole events" for your best fighters 6 or 8 times a year and rest of the events through out the year be tournaments might be the answer to offer something different for MMA fans.

 

[Wrestler160]

Bellator is about to go out the same way as TNA Wrestling.

Side note: Since we’re on the topic of Chuck Liddell, I saw him at the club along with Rick Fox in Vegas on Saturday. Seemed coked out haha

 

[InfinityLens]

I wonder if Bellator would even invest in a circus fight with chuck at this point.

none of the previous circus investments have panned out long term.

The freakshows were doing great until Kimbo v DD5K scared them off. They need to go back to that model.

 

[method115]

This really might be true. Whether it was strategy or wanting to save money or both it seems to be working. UFC has seen multiple orgs suffer the same fate.

I've always assumed it was UFC doing a bit of both. Not wanting to pay so much or fighters that aren't worth it and allowing Bellator to continue to waste money.

 

[InfinityLens]

I've always assumed it was UFC doing a bit of both. Not wanting to pay so much or fighters that aren't worth it and allowing Bellator to continue to waste money.

Don't they have some statisticians that can crunch the #'s and estimate how much each guy can draw? They can just find the max they want to spend on one guy and than go from there getting the best name guys they can afford.

I hate to sound like I am saying I can do someone's job better than them (especially something I have no background in), but this doesn't seem all that complicated.

 

[method115]

Don't they have some statisticians that can crunch the #'s and estimate how much each guy can draw? They can just find the max they want to spend on one guy and than go from there getting the best name guys they can afford.

They have to have some sort of system like this. Before Rory was let go they took him to Canada as a main event. He clearly didn't do well enough to pay him what Bellator did.

 

[Crash Lance]

Bjorn was a well known douchebag who's favoritism towards certain fighters and blatant disregard and disrespect to others drove him out of his own company. While I'm not a fan of Coker, I personally think he's ridiculously overrated as a promoter, I doubt Bellator would be as successful today with Bjorn still at the helm.

I've been saying it for years: Scott Coker has to work with a dearth of resources at Bellator MMA.

As more and more time passes, I think that I am beginning to agree with you about Scott Coker being overrated.

Furthermore, I remember a few years ago when Bellator started Bellator Kickboxing and many users on Sherdog said that they are spreading their (low amount of) resources even thinner than they already were before the creation of Bellator Kickboxing.

Perhaps Bellator should have concentrated on MMA and ONLY MMA.

I know that Scott Coker started working in Kickboxing. Remember, Strikeforce started as a Kickboxing organization before they transitioned into an MMA organization.

For all of the flak that Dana White and WME (and before that, Zuffa which had Frank Fertitta and Lorenzo Fertitta) receive, they have competed directly (or indirectly) with many individuals that had a lot of hype to their reputations and their organizations.

1. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Nobuyuki Sakakibara/Nobuhiko Takada/Pride FC/Dream Stage Entertainment/The Yakuza

2. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Scott Adams/Reed Harris/World Extreme Cagefighting

3. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. John Lewis/John Huntington/Louis Palazzo/World Fighting Alliance

4. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Naoya Kinoshita/World Victory Road/Sengoku Raiden Championship

5. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. William Kelly/Wallid Ismail/Jared Shaw/Gary Shaw/Elite Xtreme Combat/ProElite

6. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Sadaharu Tanikawa/Keiichi Sasahara/Akira Maeda/Fighting and Entertainment Group/DREAM/K-1 MMA Romanex/K-1 MMA Hero's

7. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Ray Sefo/Peter Murray/Carlos Silva/Russ Ramsey/Donn Davis/Mark Leschly/World Series of Fighting

8. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Chatri Sityodtong/Victor Cui/Rich Franklin/Matt Hume/Sequoia Capital/Temasek Holdings/ONE Championship

9. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Scott Coker/Strikeforce

10. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Kurt Otto/Gareb Shamus/Jay Larkin/Richard Kurtz/Paligent/International Fight League

11. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Bjorn Rebney/Bellator Fighting Championships

12. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Tom Atencio/Donald Trump/Michael Cohen/Monte Cox/Adrenaline MMA/Affliction Entertainment

13. Dana White/Zuffa/UFC/Lorenzo Fertitta/Frank Fertitta vs. Nobuyuki Sakakibara/Nobuhiko Takada/Rizin Fighting Federation

14. Dana White/Ari Emanuel/Patrick Whitesell/William Morris Endeavor/UFC/Silver Lake Partners/Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co./MSD Capital/Endeavor vs. Scott Coker/Rich Chou/Bellator MMA/Viacom/Sumner Redstone/Thomas May/Robert Bakish/Bellator Kickboxing

15. Dana White/Ari Emanuel/Patrick Whitesell/William Morris Endeavor/UFC/Silver Lake Partners/Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co./MSD Capital/Endeavor vs. Ray Sefo/Peter Murray/Carlos Silva/Russ Ramsey/Donn Davis/Mark Leschly/NBC Sports Group/Mark Lazarus/Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg/Professional Fighters League

What is it that Floyd Mayweather Jr. always says about himself?

"50 have tried. 50 have failed." - Floyd Mayweather Jr.

 

[Gigaton Punch]

UFC have played this brilliantly, dangling expensive free agents that wouldn't attract much casual interest.

Coker took the bait. Hook, line and sinker.

It was also a way to prove they don't have a monopoly on MMA and cut costs after WME paid far too much to buy the company
Killing 3 birds with one stone

 

[Hitdafloor34]

I'm okay with, also have like an hour of undercard fights on cmt. Maybe freakshow fights with country music stars too. More Reba commercials also. Smokey mountain barbeque!

That commercial made me wanna blow my skull off!!!!! I can’t stand that singing at the end.... did its job though, I won’t ever forget it...too bad kfc is the filthiest of all the chicken spots.... Popeyes, church’s and lees murder it

 

[molest]

Enough is enough, Coker needs to go. If you watched strikeforce shows pre showtime they looked alot like what its being offered right now, shit undercards with the occasional good main event, the matches like now were also poorly matchmaked and the fights were not very good, sure thay had Cung Le and Frank but they still had cards headlined by Joe Riggs and stuff.

Showtime was the thing that made Strikeforce great they had good production and apparently picked the fights they wanted. Coker is being exposed, he is also not a good bussiness man, he sold his company when they didnt even have a tv deal, and was just content on being a regional guy until the EliteXC died and they became 2 by default.
Even now he acts like a regional promoter placing more importance on having a great local gate in the UK than in the thousand of fans that will watch Bellator 200. Those international shows might do good gates but they dont grow the company at all.

I really hope Viacom pulls the plug on Coker and not on Bellator altogheter. This event is not even being broadcasted in my country, i guess they had enough of shit ratings and i have to find a stream now.

 

[TrueBias]

So what channel is it on?

 

[PEB]

So what channel is it on?

CMT or Paramount? Paramount is an internet streaming channel. I hope they did not expect to see a ratings increase when they moved to Paramount internet. They need to give it more time to develop it literally took UFC 7 years an 40 million dollars to get eyeballs watching events. All these guys go out and sign unsigned big names an pay them big money in the hopes to pull in solid ratings and boost interest. They need to take time develop talent and build the brand.

 

[podsox]

They need to find more prospects. I have no problem with former huge Names being on cards but nobody wants to watch guys like Kendall grove who are middle tier boring fighters. Bellator has way too much of that on their roster.

 

[RODNEY83]

Scott Coker is awful, the man put a Bellator Heavyweight Tournament together without heavyweights Bobby Lashley, 15-2, without Cheick Kongo, 29-10-2, without Sergei Kharitonov, 28-6, and without Justin Wren, 13-2. And he let heavyweight Augusto Sakai, 10-1-1 , walk right into the UFC. So instead of having a Bellator Heavyweight Tournament with matchups like Bobby Lashley vs Ryan Bader, and Sergei Kharitonov vs Fedor Emelianenko, and Cheick Kongo vs Matt Mitrione, and Justin Wren vs Augusto Sakai. Scott Coker gave us a Bellator Heavyweight Tournament of pathetic performances and uncompetitive fights and he will always do those things. He scheduled a welterweight tournament and instead of giving us a fresh match up for Douglas Lima and Andrey Koreshkov, limited mindset Scott Coker matched them up against each other and will carry the opening round of the tournament until probably around February or March of 2019. Bellator doesn't get ratings because Scott Coker doesn't put fights together that will draw ratings.

 

[kingcillo24]

Scott Coker is awful, the man put a Bellator Heavyweight Tournament together without heavyweights Bobby Lashley, 15-2, without Cheick Kongo, 29-10-2, without Sergei Kharitonov, 28-6, and without Justin Wren, 13-2. And he let heavyweight Augusto Sakai, 10-1-1 , walk right into the UFC. So instead of having a Bellator Heavyweight Tournament with matchups like Bobby Lashley vs Ryan Bader

What makes you think Bobby Lashley wants to fight after going to the WWE?

 

[strongstylekarate]

Bellator should apply the One Championship approach.

 

[Thread]

Bellator should apply the One Championship approach.

What's that exactly?