The Death of Bellator

Contributor: Connor Dillon

Tito Ortiz. “Rampage” Jackson. King Mo. These three names have been swirling within the MMA hemisphere for the past several months, for various reasons. Ortiz for signing with Bellator to fight the aforementioned “Rampage”, as well as making comments comparing Dana White to a slave owner. “Rampage” got his name around for signing with Bellator and pushing for a fight with Roy Jones Jr., before ultimately signing to fight against Tito Ortiz. King Mo’s name is spread for his utter ridiculous comments about the handicapped & Bellator’s “4-Man Summer Tournament” that saw him win the whole shebang and a title shot.

Except ther are little things with each of these fighters that irks me, and it isn’t just their horrible smack talk. Tito, “Rampage”, and King Mo all have contracts with TNA Wrestling, a professional wrestling league that also appears on Spike. On top of that, King Mo has been heavily pushed and advertised by Bellator, even more than their own champion. In the first Bellator tournament he fought in, Mo was given his own preview show and clearly had favorable drawings. Hell, I even picked him to win the tournament. Luckily though, Emmanuel Newton threw a spinning backfist that knocked out Mo before cuddling with him on national television. Newton went on to win the whole 8-Man tournament and get a title shot. Afterwards, many assumed that Attila Vegh, the current Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, and Newton would fight. Unfortunately, it seemed that Vegh suffered an injury and instead an interim Championship would be placed on the line between Newton and the eventual victor of a special 4-Man summer tournament. Strangely, guess who won this half-sized tournament….that’s right. King Mo. So we got the rematch that every Bellator (cough-King Mo-cough) fan wanted to see. Well, that’s fine and all. It makes sense, with your LHW Champ on the sidelines from an injury, right?

Only…..Attila Vegh wasn’t injured.

In a interview released only days ago, Vegh announced that he was benched by Bellator so they could throw on the rematch between King Mo and Emmanuel Newton. Who the fuck would’ve thought this would happen? Bellator, one of the most outstanding mixed martial arts promotions to work for, seemingly doing everything they can to make sure one fighter came out on top as their Champion. I mean just ask Eddie Alvarez, Tyson Nam, or Zach Makovsky how amazing it is to be under contract with Bellator. At this point you can add Emmanuel Newton and Attila Vegh to that list as well. Bellator has tried to combat this by posting a medical statement that still doesn’t add up with all the details we know at this point.

By now I’m sure you’re wondering what exactly do I mean about the death of Bellator and the downfall of MMA.

Here’s a little history lesson for you youngins. Back in the old day the best thing a man could do to prove his manliness and overall badassedness would be to throw down in some catch-as-catch-can wrestling matches. Most of the matches had limited rules, i.e. you couldn’t perform certain holds, but other than barring some holds virtually everything could be legal. You would see people gets eyes gouged out, ankles snapped, and people tossed left and right. Most matches required a wrestler to win the best two out of three pinfalls or submissions, so you could potentially see long matches between two excellent tacticians looking for the biggest advantage in a fight. In other words, you’d see some boring ass fights. This slowly started turning people off from the whole shows, because you were never guaranteed to get action and many times it could turn into a hugfest between two men looking to throw each other the first chance they got, while gouging or biting in some cases. However, some wrestlers decided that they could liven up their matches, and rake in much money by meeting together and predetermining each match before it was wrestled. Slowly, this kind of wrestling caught on more and more, while traditional catch wrestling had it’s many holds and submissions removed and became American free-style (collegiate/amateur) wrestling. What this eventually morphed into after several decades was the various professional wrestling promotions.

So now you’re asking me, what the hell does history have to do with Bellator dying and MMA falling out of it’s current growth?

Simply put, too many mixed martial artists are appearing in professional wrestling matches, while the #2 promotion in the world is doing PR work on the Mike Kogan-level. Bellator has its top-three casual names connected to professional wrestling, and has clearly worked to give King Mo their Light-Heavyweight title by matching him up favorably, instantly including him in a smaller tournament once he lost in clear fashion (thereby enhancing his chances to win), benching their champion to have a rematch with Newton for an interim title, and their various high profile contractual screw-ups with fan favorites like Eddie Alvarez. This path, going down the road of cross promoting with a professional wrestling promotion and throwing their champions under the bus, is spelling slow doom for Bellator. They already weren’t liked by many hardcores, but at this point I doubt it would surprise some of us if it turns out they tried to pay off some fighters to take a dive so a more marketable fighter could come out ahead. Bellator, and to a certain extent the UFC, has made some fatal decisions and I honestly do think this will make them flutter out of existence within a couple years. Personally, I can’t wait to see the reappearance of Dana’s tombstone.

I will note, that this could influence other fighters across the world and we may wind up seeing something similar to catch wrestling in the 20’s and 30’s, where entertainment and predetermined matches slowly make the draw.

-Connor can be reached @connorhavok.