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Hopefully whoever buys it guts the roster of the boring fighters. It's those guys that hold Bellator off from getting anywhere imo.
News Bellator sale talks heating up
- Thread starter TorontoTO
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Imagine if someone bought it and immediately dumped Jason Jackson, Danny Sabatello, Islam Mamedov, Sidney Outlaw, Saul Rogers, Georgi Karakhanyan, Cheick Kongo, Grant Neal, Mike Shipman, Kyle Crutchmer, Steven Hill, Soren Bak, Davy Gallon, Darrion Caldwell, Josh Hill and Justine Kish.
Shit would be instantly 10x more enjoyable.
Shit would be instantly 10x more enjoyable.
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That clown needs to go
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Nah if I'm running a mma org I want him running my scouting/ fighter relations, has best eye for talent plus no fighter ever speaks I'll of him
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Tbf it's not really that difficult to scout these days. Most fights are pretty easily available.
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Coker's guys do have an amazing track record at scouting up and coming talent. Bar none, nobody has the track record they have since the Strikeforce days to the Bellator times. And Im not talking about signing proven LFA, Jungle Fights, Titan, etc. champs, Im talking about debuting fighters or guys with a couple fights and turning them into solid or championship material.
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I would keep Sabatello but would get rid of the rest. At least Sabatello has a personality and a gimmick going on.
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True, but even then they're usually guys with big backgrounds in other sports or an impressive ammy record though. The advantage they have with developing people from scratch is that they can feed them cans to start with which is something the UFC can't do really.
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Yeah, but that just gets you interested in the fight and then you end up watching him fight and remember how abysmal he is to watch.
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Coker has connections as well. Khabib, Javier Mendez, most of the old Strikeforce guys, etc likes him, so does most of the bigger gyms.
having good relations with the bigger gyms helps to get guys signed. That’s why bjorn can never come back to mma since everyone hates him
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I don’t think it’s so much the talent rather than Bellator not dangling bonuses like UFC does. I’ve seen Jason Jackson put on some fairly explosive performances but in Bellator the most valuable thing is a win..not a great entertaining performance.
that’s why Bellator has booked so many fights over the years that looked dynamite on paper but turned out to be duds.
a guy like Michael Chandler always wanted to put on a show and took several losses in Bellator. It didn’t matter that he was past his prime and was knocked off his perch in Bellator. UFC wanted him because he was proven entertaining. Everybody else just wants to make sure they don’t rack up too many losses in the #2 league. I wish they realized that even a 20k bonus would drastically change the way most of these guys approach their fights.
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Yeah, they do a great job at exploiting that advantage that other promotions, like PFL, ONE, etc. don't.
PFL tried to do that with the Claressa Shields experiment and Ali's grandson gimmick in the last event, but I would say that so far they arent great at scouting talent.
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Best case scenario for a buyer is Netflix. They've recently got into live streaming of events and were reported to be shopping around for some niche sports leagues previously.
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You didn't enjoy Justine's shit ?
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The reality is the best thing for Bellator is probably a sale.
The change in Bellator since the whole Viacom buying and Coker getting in there has been nothing but a snails pace and continues to be more meh than anything else. Nothing goes on in Bellator that gets fans excited or even talking. Best thing they have done is build up a decent roster over time but its managed like shit and got some growth in some markets outside the North America. Big money needs to be infused into the product to make significant changes in the roster and the business overall. Money has to go into advertising/promotion. If you are playing the UFC light kind of business plan then you better be a bigger player in the named active stars when contracts come up. Otherwise you'll be just another org in the corner of the MMA world like so many others and nothing will change from what they are today.
Plus, Bellator selling allows someone to cash in on the most lucrative media deal, the US and instantly gets money flowing in. Similar to what the DAZN deal should've done. But Viacom seemed to pocket most of that revenue instead of trying to build up Bellator to be bigger. This is a massive amount of revenue that Bellator has never been able to take advantage of.
I just thinks it time for new ownership and management in Bellator. Coker is great at talent relations and beyond that very average at best. What we see in Bellator today is the best it will ever get under the current ownership and management. It's been in place for years with little to show overall in the MMA market share.
The change in Bellator since the whole Viacom buying and Coker getting in there has been nothing but a snails pace and continues to be more meh than anything else. Nothing goes on in Bellator that gets fans excited or even talking. Best thing they have done is build up a decent roster over time but its managed like shit and got some growth in some markets outside the North America. Big money needs to be infused into the product to make significant changes in the roster and the business overall. Money has to go into advertising/promotion. If you are playing the UFC light kind of business plan then you better be a bigger player in the named active stars when contracts come up. Otherwise you'll be just another org in the corner of the MMA world like so many others and nothing will change from what they are today.
Plus, Bellator selling allows someone to cash in on the most lucrative media deal, the US and instantly gets money flowing in. Similar to what the DAZN deal should've done. But Viacom seemed to pocket most of that revenue instead of trying to build up Bellator to be bigger. This is a massive amount of revenue that Bellator has never been able to take advantage of.
I just thinks it time for new ownership and management in Bellator. Coker is great at talent relations and beyond that very average at best. What we see in Bellator today is the best it will ever get under the current ownership and management. It's been in place for years with little to show overall in the MMA market share.
I agree with dumping Crutchmer, Karakhanyan, Rogers, Caldwell and Kish. The others some having good winning records with more KO/TKO/Sub wins compared to decisions should be kept. With the rest they will either move up the rankings or will be used so newly signed fighters or prospects can move into the rankings with big wins.
Coker has done a great job with Bellator. So far they have put together better fight cards compared to the watered down fight cards the UFC has put together for almost 2 decades. Coker can't force Viacom to heavily promote Bellator but with 0 Viacom promotion he has kept the company out of the red and profitable over 5 years. Coker has not made the same mistake he made with Strikeforce. The PFL and One are currently on that Strikeforce road deep in the red and ready to fail.
Now just look at the Bellator roster. Its incredible that Bellator has more fighters in top 10 Sherdog rankings including Vadim Nemkov ranked #1 LHW and Patricio #2 FW is a big accomplishment for Coker proving Bellator has just as good of a roster as Strikeforce had back in the day.
Coker has not run Bellator into the ground he slowly built them up and and anyone that believes Bellator fight cards over the past year have been garbage are just UFC butt kissers period! Bellator is the clear #2 profitable MMA promotion on the planet while the PFL and One are far behind and deep in the red. Would I like to see an investor that will spend money on heavily promoting Bellator shows hell yes but not at the expense of having the company go deep into the red to the point they end up failing.
Nobody is going to catch the UFC while they continue to take in 85% of total revenue while paying the fighters the peanut portion of 15%. Thats why the UFC ihas held onto its #1 position they can spend millions promoting the Org year after year. As long as that 85% - 15% split in total revenue remains intact the UFC will remain a monopoly in MMA.
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People criticize Coker for not taking Bellator to the next level but the reality is that he has done a great job at maintaining Bellator as #2 for a sustained period of time, not bankrupting the company, and building up an incredible roster. Its not like Coker wants to sign boring fighters or have 0 promotion for their events. Some decisions are not up to him, CBS themselves are Coker worst enemy some times.
Think about how hard it must be to grow the company having to compete with the entire UFC hype machine. Its impressive the amount of world class talent they have when they had to compete against the UFC for them. We give Coker a lot of shit for some boring fighters being signed but that is all they can get considering most fighters want to go to the UFC. So, yeah they have some boring fighters but they also have some incredible world class (top 1-3), too.
I think if you put together the amount of world class fighters in PFL and ONE, they wouldnt make half of the world clas fighters Bellator has. That is impressive on in itself. Now, they have a shit distribution in the US with Showtime and get almost 0 push from CBS but the roster itself is top notch.
I would like to see what Coker can do with more support from CBS and not bound by a tight budget.
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Yet ONE cards are significantly more exciting. There is a lot more to booking a promotion than just getting the best fighters. Bellator has never understood that concept and that is why their product is so dry. They're still using that UFC 2007 tactic of getting a lot of boring ass wrestlers with NCAA backgrounds. They also waste resources trying to push Ireland with some overrated ass fighters for a market that isn't important. New pushes like with their LW division is the direction it should be headed too.
ONE isn't trying to get the best fighters. It's trying to put on fights and narratives that they can sell to Asian people. KSW, Rizin and ACA all have similar goals. The UFC isn't trying to get the best fighters either, really. The PFL's selling point is its format not its roster.
I'm not saying PFL is doing better than Bellator, but I dont get the point of citing Bellator has better fighters. PFL isn't trying to get the best fighters. (and their fighters are probably underrated, anyway)
Bellator is trying to win at a game no one else is playing. Promotions do not care if Jason Jackson can beat their guy via lay and pray. Rizin lost to Bellator 5-0 and it hasn't affected them in the slightest.
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