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Coker is absolutely brilliant
- Thread starter stielar
- Start date
Dada "Heart Rate of" 5000
nada 5000 IMO
If you judged the ufc by the same standards it'd be easier to see your point. Is Dan Henderson in his prime? Is Vitor Belfort in his prime? Anderson Silva? Mark Hunt? Andrei Arlovski? Josh Barnett?
Ben Henderson: In his prime
Phil Davis: In his prime
Wanderlei Silva: he's not in his prime, but he's a legend and at the same caliber like Belfort, Henderson etc, etc
Rampage Jackson: If it wasn't for legal issues he'd be fighting in the ufc now.
Sergei Kharitonov: The guy whose ass is thrown outside the ring in the photo I posted is Alistair Overeem. He also has wins over Werdum.
Josh Thompson: Not in his prime, but a legit fighter that could make a come back.
Chris Leben: Obviously out of his prime.
Royce Gracie: Out of his prime but a submission legend.
Kimbo Slice: Never was a legit mma fighter but a huge draw for whatever this is worth.
Ed Ruth: Up and coming amazing talent
Anastasia Yankova: Who cares how she fights
Your arguments sound very similar to the ufc shills back in the strikeforce days. The "if he's not in the ufc he doesn't matter" mentality.
I have no hate for Coker, I hope he's successful.
All I'm saying is you have to have a long term plan, you have to build. Guys like Kimbo, Gracie, Shamrock, Wanderlei, Leben, ect, have very limited time left. They're basically "rentals", especially Rampage, who has made it clear he hates Bellator and is just fighting out his contract so he can leave.
I don't know that Coker knows what he's doing. I still say it was a huge mistake to put two big drawing freak shows on one card instead of using them to draw eyes to their real talent.
I'm not making any arguments, I'm just stating facts. I'm not shilling for anyone.
All those guys you mentioned that the UFC still employs - they're still top ranked guys (with the exception of Henderson).
So to sum it up: no, I wasn't wrong.
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We can both agree on not liking most of these freakshows. I'm not high on most of them, but I like to look at it as keeping the seat warm, they are here time bring short term ratings, that'll allow them to further their long term operation. We have three Olympic wrestlers who are going to make their debuts late this ear or early next year(pico, Ruth, fortune).
We also have solid fighters like Caldwell, yamauchi, bubba Jenkins, and Chris Harris(who had a foty candidate last week).we also have prospects like aj McKee, and Andre fiahlo, whom they could build up in the future. Coker is mixing draws as well as youth that'll make big things in the future.
I didn't like their last freakshow, but did you see the gate? 1.2m. That is exactly why they have those fighters. Coker could do a ton of things with that money. Money we wouldn't have seen had he not put on that double freakshow.
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I think Bellator has a lot of great talent. Koreshkov is one of my favorite fighters.
I had the ratings discussion in another thread, it's great to get big ratings and a good gate, but when you have that many eyes on your product and you serve up a shit sandwich like Dada/Kimbo and Gracie/Shamrock, that hurts the cause.
1.2m gate is okay, but you have to take taxes, expenses, insurance, fighter pay, ect out of that, and there's no PPV revenue coming in the other side. It's not company-changing money by any means.
The simple thing is, people tuned in to see a shit sandwich, and a shit sandwich is what they got. I'd like to think that your not in any way disillusioned at casuals actually expected world class mma with the kimbo and Royce fights? They tuned in for kimbo, and they got kimbo.
Any publicity is better than no publicity.
We all know that bellator won't keep the 1.2m but for a company of bellators stature, it is truly not bad imo.
People tuned in to Kimbo/Dada to see a slugfest and/or brutal knockout like Kimbo is known to score from time to time. They weren't expecting world class skill, but they were expecting fun. What they didn't tune in to see was two guys huffing and puffing and falling over each other for 3 rounds until one guy collapsed not from a punch, but from sheer exhaustion. It was embarrassing. Casual fans were laughing about it. That's not good for anyone.
My point was if you put Dada/Kimbo as co-main event underneath Henderson/Koreshkov, you draw all those eyes to your real talent, and you have a great fight to cleanse the palette after Kimbo and Dada stunk out the arena. I say it was shit booking by Coker.
Here's a handy list of some of the more weary fossils on Bellators roster...
Anastasia Yankova
Rebecca Ruth
Lena Ovchynnikova
Keri Melendez
Bruna Ellen
Bruna Vargas
Kenya Miranda
Talita Noguirea
Eduardo Dantes
Darrion Caldwell
Marcos Galvao
Steve Garcia
Joe Taimanglo
Sirwan Kakai
Daniel Straus
Patricio Pitbull
Goiti Yamauchi
Bubba Jenkins
Emmanuel Sanchez
Jordan Parsons
John Teixeira
A.J McKee
Georgi Karakhanyan
Justin Lawrence
Isao Kobayashi
Aaron Pico
Will Brooks
Michael Chandler
Patricky Pitbull
Marcin Held
Josh Thomson
Dave Jansen
Brandon Girtz
Caveman Rickels
Derek Anderson
Brent Primus
Adam Piccolotti
Andrey Koreshkov
Benson Henderson
Michael Venom Page
Douglas Lima
Brennan Ward
Rickey Rainey
Andre Fialho
Gilbert Smith
Chidi Njokuani
Chris Honeycutt
Fernando Gonzalez
Chris Harris
Rafael Carvalho
Ed Ruth
Brandon Halsey
Ben Reiter
Hisaki Kato
Neiman Gracie
Abdul Razak Alhassan
Neal Ewing
Julian Marquez
Liam McGeary
Phil Davis
Linton Vassell
King Mo
Phillipe Lins
Vitaly Minakov
Tony Johnson
Vinicius Spartan
Augusto Sakai
Tyrell Fortune
Dmitriy Sosnovskiy
Javy Ayala
Raphael Butler
Anastasia Yankova
Rebecca Ruth
Lena Ovchynnikova
Keri Melendez
Bruna Ellen
Bruna Vargas
Kenya Miranda
Talita Noguirea
Eduardo Dantes
Darrion Caldwell
Marcos Galvao
Steve Garcia
Joe Taimanglo
Sirwan Kakai
Daniel Straus
Patricio Pitbull
Goiti Yamauchi
Bubba Jenkins
Emmanuel Sanchez
Jordan Parsons
John Teixeira
A.J McKee
Georgi Karakhanyan
Justin Lawrence
Isao Kobayashi
Aaron Pico
Will Brooks
Michael Chandler
Patricky Pitbull
Marcin Held
Josh Thomson
Dave Jansen
Brandon Girtz
Caveman Rickels
Derek Anderson
Brent Primus
Adam Piccolotti
Andrey Koreshkov
Benson Henderson
Michael Venom Page
Douglas Lima
Brennan Ward
Rickey Rainey
Andre Fialho
Gilbert Smith
Chidi Njokuani
Chris Honeycutt
Fernando Gonzalez
Chris Harris
Rafael Carvalho
Ed Ruth
Brandon Halsey
Ben Reiter
Hisaki Kato
Neiman Gracie
Abdul Razak Alhassan
Neal Ewing
Julian Marquez
Liam McGeary
Phil Davis
Linton Vassell
King Mo
Phillipe Lins
Vitaly Minakov
Tony Johnson
Vinicius Spartan
Augusto Sakai
Tyrell Fortune
Dmitriy Sosnovskiy
Javy Ayala
Raphael Butler
I never said the roster was full of fossils, we were talking about the recent signings the OP mentioned.
What can you say? Fights don't always go as expected. I firmly believe that this did more good for bellator than it did harm. People said that the Tito fight was going to turn people off, then ken V kimbo beats the ratings. People said ken V kimbo was shit, then kimbo v dada beats those ratings. As long as people are tuning in, I'm sure Coker doesn't mind.
We don't know what bellators objectives are. What some of us think of as a failure, they could see as a huge success. That event broke records once again. I'm sure Coker isn't mad.
Also, it's not like benson needs the kimbo lead in. He has headlined multiple ppv and free cards in the UFC. Coker is probably confident that bendo could hold a card on his own. Hype the card up, and let people know benson is fighting, I'm sure it'll do great numbers.
Come to think of it. The benson special after the kimbo fight did like 833k no? That is more viewership than most non tent pole cards.
I'm just going to hold off until the end of this year, if ratings are the same or worse as last years, I'll agree with u when u say these tent poles do more harm than good.
But with the recent signing Coker has made. I'm willing to bet money 2016 will be bellators biggest year to date.
Alright. Here's that list-
Ben Henderson
Wanderlei Silva
Rampage Jackson
Sergei Kharitonov
Phil Davis
Josh Thomson
Chris Leben
Anastasia Yankova
Ed Ruth
Kimbo Slice
Josh Koscheck
Royce Gracie
Of everyone on that list, I'd say these guys- Wand, Rampage, Kos, and Leben- are just in it now for fun fights that bring attention. Royce Gracie was likely one and done. If not, it's not like he's gonna be fighting Koreshkov or anything. And Kimbo Slice is just there to draw ratings, which he does. No ones under the impression that he's gonna compete for a title or anything.
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Right, but you can't build a company around a 42 year old street brawler, a 50 year old pioneer, or guys that are well passed their prime and coming out of retirement like Leben, Kos and Wand.
Phil Davis and Benson Henderson were great signings, Thompson was a good signing. Ed Ruth is an interesting prospect, but it'll be a while before he makes his debut.
Other than that, there's a lot of UFC dumpster diving. Coker was talking a lot of shit about going after UFC's free agents, but he came up short on the two biggest ones in Alistair and Sterling.
Phil Davis and Benson Henderson were great signings, Thompson was a good signing. Ed Ruth is an interesting prospect, but it'll be a while before he makes his debut.
Other than that, there's a lot of UFC dumpster diving. Coker was talking a lot of shit about going after UFC's free agents, but he came up short on the two biggest ones in Alistair and Sterling.
Outbid on Overeem and no interest in Sterling, yet.
And they're not building their company around Royce and Kimbo, just using them to grab ratings which they have. It's not like they'll fold if and when Kimbo gets KTFO.
We dont know who's in their prime and who isn't. Everyone had written Werdum off and he won the UFC HW title at age 37. Although he's not the norm, guys are capable of making career resurgences. Sometimes it just takes a change in environment, or in training, etc. So who knows what some of these guys could do over the next 3-5 years. If you're an MMA fan, the point should be that it will be fun to watch play out. I think Coker's doing a great job. Rome wasn't built overnight
Sign UFC rejects. Brilliant
Hey, I hope it works out for them. I really do. I hope casuals stick around.
All I know is EliteXC: Heat drew 4.5 million viewers on CBS with over 800k at the gate, and less than a year later were closing their doors. Strikeforce pulled 741,000 viewers for Fedor/Silva and they were bought by the UFC I think about a month later.
I've seen a lot of MMA orgs come and go over the years, I just hope Bellator won't end up in the boneyard like the rest of them.
Strikeforce sold out because they were owned by an investment group that buys and flips businesses though. Coker had that thing rolling and the UFC knew it, so they made an outlandish offer to the owners. This is a completely different situation. Bellator is owned my a media giant, that has invested in MMA so they can provide content.
Ah yes, but things haven't been going so smoothly for Viacom and their assets over the last year or so.
I want Bellator to succeed just as much as anyone, I'm just a bit disappointed with the direction they seem to be going in.
They own Paramount Pictures don't they?
Hm, I wonder what's going on with this guy. Training for Olympics?