Bellator to add 125, 145 women's titles in 2016

[Wild]

Bellator CEO Scott Coker pioneered the promotion of women's mixed martial arts. His previous company, Strikeforce, presented the first major card headlined by a women's title fight in 2009 when Gina Carano met Cyborg Justino.

So it should come as no surprise that Coker continues to blaze trails with Bellator. In a Thursday interview, Coker told MMAFighting.com that the company plans on instituting flyweight and featherweight women's titles in 2016.

"That's definitely in the plans," said Coker. "We're committed. You're going to see champions in both weight classes."

Bellator has made several signings in the 125-pound weight class in recent months, the most notable of which is Ukranian standout Lena Ovchynnikova (10-3), who debuts atBellator 150, a former kickboxing standout who meets Rebecca Ruth at Bellator 150.

"We're aggressively signing talent at 125 pounds," Coker said. "Things have to play out a bit, but by the summer, we should be in position start the process on crowning a champion."

And for the 145 pound title? Coker added "The only holdup on Marloes vs. Julia is that Marloes has been injured. She'll be cleared soon. They'll fight for the title, if things go well it could be as early as April."

LINK: Bellator plans to crown flyweight and featherweight women's champions in 2016

 

[Sweets]

Ufc to add 125, 145 women's titles in 2017
by Kenny Florian

 

[Sweets]

On a serious note do I hear Miesha Tates lips smacking? This would suit her down to the ground.

 

[TheEmperorRises]

Hell yeah

 

[Wild]

On a serious note do I hear Miesha Tates lips smacking? This would suit her down to the ground.

Whether she beats Holly or not is going to make her future in the UFC interesting.

 

[Sweets]

Whether she beats Holly or not is going to make her future in the UFC interesting.

Mmm Hmmm realistically though she's better of a sponsored champ with Bellator in a weight class that suits her. Then a Zuffa gladiator chillin in a motel, metaphorically speaking. Even as a champ.

 

[Clappin'Daddys]

Dam, Coker just seems to be doing everything right. One thing that Coker should be commended for is not burning bridges. Kennedy would be fighting for Coker if he could. I'm sure meisha would gladly sit down and talk money with Coker as well. I don't think Tate beats holm. She could fight her contract out and reign as bellators champ. Squashing inferior opposition the way rousey did. I'm willing to bet she will make a ton of money in sponsorships and would draw fantastic for bmma

 

[Sweets]

Dam, Coker just seems to be doing everything right. One thing that Coker should be commended for is not burning bridges. Kennedy would be fighting for Coker if he could. I'm sure meisha would gladly sit down and talk money with Coker as well. I don't think Tate beats holm. She could fight her contract out and reign as bellators champ. Squashing inferior opposition the way rousey did. I'm willing to bet she will make a ton of money in sponsorships and would draw fantastic for bmma

All the while sticking it to Zuffa. It's beautiful.

 

[Super Dave]

Dam, Coker just seems to be doing everything right. One thing that Coker should be commended for is not burning bridges. Kennedy would be fighting for Coker if he could. I'm sure meisha would gladly sit down and talk money with Coker as well. I don't think Tate beats holm. She could fight her contract out and reign as bellators champ. Squashing inferior opposition the way rousey did. I'm willing to bet she will make a ton of money in sponsorships and would draw fantastic for bmma

I was nervous about the state of Bellator before Coker took over but like you said he seems to be doing things right. Hopefully Coker pulls some free agents from the UFC and attracts some more attention Bellator's way. Bringing back women's divisions is an exciting announcement. Can't wait to see what else Coker has planned!

 

[Wild]

I think we're about 12-18 months away from Strikeforce 2.0. Coker had a lot of shit that he had to clean up when he came in, that had nothing to do with recruiting talent, signing talent, or promoting his organization. Seems he's gotten that behind him and is now looking to expand & bring in the next generation of stars, while signing some free agents. I like it.

 

[TheEmperorRises]

I think we're about 12-18 months away from Strikeforce 2.0. Coker had a lot of shit that he had to clean up when he came in, that had nothing to do with recruiting talent, signing talent, or promoting his organization. Seems he's gotten that behind him and is now looking to expand & bring in the next generation of stars, while signing some free agents. I like it.

I'm super excited to see Ruth, Fortune and Picco make their debuts

 

[dacofty]

Well I wonder how long Cyborg has on her enslavement left with zuffa. If not long i suspect she will migrate over to Bellator

 

[Clappin'Daddys]

I think we're about 12-18 months away from Strikeforce 2.0. Coker had a lot of shit that he had to clean up when he came in, that had nothing to do with recruiting talent, signing talent, or promoting his organization. Seems he's gotten that behind him and is now looking to expand & bring in the next generation of stars, while signing some free agents. I like it.

I feel like that's a bit too optimistic. Strikeforce, at its peak, was pretty fucking solid. I want to give Coker another 2 years minimum before I start judging him on bellator. By that time, I hope he has moved away from the shamrocks, royces. And kimbos. He already has pico,Ruth, and fortune line up for the future. If he can get Overeem, sterling, and bendo. Then dam, that'll be a giant success.



Completely off topic, but does anyone know where I can find that article where Coker and other sf execs speak about the UFC sf deal? I can't seem to find it. It's only about a couple months old iirc.

Thanks to anyone who helps.

 

[Wild]

I feel like that's a bit too optimistic. Strikeforce, at its peak, was pretty fucking solid. I want to give Coker another 2 years minimum before I start judging him on bellator. By that time, I hope he has moved away from the shamrocks, royces. And kimbos. He already has pico,Ruth, and fortune line up for the future. If he can get Overeem, sterling, and bendo. Then dam, that'll be a giant success.

Completely off topic, but does anyone know where I can find that article where Coker and other sf execs speak about the UFC sf deal? I can't seem to find it. It's only about a couple months old iirc.

Thanks to anyone who helps.

This is it, I think: The Secret History of Strikeforce - Part 5: Business As Usual

SCOTT COKER:
The notion that Strikeforce was hemorrhaging money and that's why we would sell is not true. [Zuffa] reached out to us to buy and why would you pay that kind of money for a company that was bleeding to death? Unless you sat in on our excutive committee meetings, you weren't going to know what the numbers were.

There were four of us that made up the committee [Scott, Kenn Ellner, Jim Goddard, and Charlie Faas] and then two additional staff member who sat in [Matt Levine and Andrew Ebel]. We'd meet once a week to plan strategy and basically run the business of Strikeforce.

SCOTT COKER:
In, I want to say, October of 2010, Dana called me personally and said "Lorenzo wants to buy Strikeforce. You guys interested?" And I said I'd talk to my partners.

We ended up meeting in late November and at first it was just dialogue so I was thinking maybe nothing's going to happen. But then after the New Years talks started to really heat up and within sixty days it was a done deal. It went so fast there was no time to find another buyer even if I could have.

I really wasn't interested in [selling], because I knew how much upside potential there was. But at some point it made a lot of sense for the HP guys to make the deal. These guys that invest in the Sharks, the actual finance guys, are from hi tech venture firms.

At the end of the day they're businessmen. They looked at me a couple of times and said they couldn't believe I didn't want to do this. Eventually I said I understand. It was a business deal and I didn't want to be in a situation where I had disgruntled partners.

SCOTT COKER:
The original focus for Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment was to bring other sporting properties to the Bay Area, to invest in other buildings, and to eventually become another AEG company.

At the end of the day they decided to get back to their core business which was the Sharks. If you look at it they got completely out of anything that didn't have to do with hockey. They are out of the tennis business. They got out of Strikeforce. They are only running the hockey team and that's what they wanted to get back to focusing on. It's no longer [Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment] it's the Sharks Sports Group.

SCOTT COKER:
I told my guys we should wait another year, but they saw what was on the table right now and it was attractive to them.

I never imagined that the UFC would leave SPIKE. If I'd known that I would have told them to wait and we could have had Viacom as a partner and we would have been on both Showtime and SPIKE.

But it's not true we had to sell. That we had to be saved. That's just not true. We were the only company besides the UFC that was doing arena shows that could do million dollar gates. We had a multimillion dollar deal with Showtime. We were bringing in seven figures a year from sponsorships and over seven figures a year from our international deals. We had a Rockstar deal. Full Tilt Poker. We had Shine International handling the foreign markets. We were a company that was making money on all of our events except for the Fedor fights.

The only reason we got sold is because Zuffa came in and offered to write a big check.

 

[Clappin'Daddys]

This is it, I think: The Secret History of Strikeforce - Part 5: Business As Usual

SCOTT COKER:
The notion that Strikeforce was hemorrhaging money and that's why we would sell is not true. [Zuffa] reached out to us to buy and why would you pay that kind of money for a company that was bleeding to death? Unless you sat in on our excutive committee meetings, you weren't going to know what the numbers were.

There were four of us that made up the committee [Scott, Kenn Ellner, Jim Goddard, and Charlie Faas] and then two additional staff member who sat in [Matt Levine and Andrew Ebel]. We'd meet once a week to plan strategy and basically run the business of Strikeforce.

SCOTT COKER:
In, I want to say, October of 2010, Dana called me personally and said "Lorenzo wants to buy Strikeforce. You guys interested?" And I said I'd talk to my partners.

We ended up meeting in late November and at first it was just dialogue so I was thinking maybe nothing's going to happen. But then after the New Years talks started to really heat up and within sixty days it was a done deal. It went so fast there was no time to find another buyer even if I could have.

I really wasn't interested in [selling], because I knew how much upside potential there was. But at some point it made a lot of sense for the HP guys to make the deal. These guys that invest in the Sharks, the actual finance guys, are from hi tech venture firms.

At the end of the day they're businessmen. They looked at me a couple of times and said they couldn't believe I didn't want to do this. Eventually I said I understand. It was a business deal and I didn't want to be in a situation where I had disgruntled partners.

SCOTT COKER:
The original focus for Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment was to bring other sporting properties to the Bay Area, to invest in other buildings, and to eventually become another AEG company.

At the end of the day they decided to get back to their core business which was the Sharks. If you look at it they got completely out of anything that didn't have to do with hockey. They are out of the tennis business. They got out of Strikeforce. They are only running the hockey team and that's what they wanted to get back to focusing on. It's no longer [Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment] it's the Sharks Sports Group.

SCOTT COKER:
I told my guys we should wait another year, but they saw what was on the table right now and it was attractive to them.

I never imagined that the UFC would leave SPIKE. If I'd known that I would have told them to wait and we could have had Viacom as a partner and we would have been on both Showtime and SPIKE.

But it's not true we had to sell. That we had to be saved. That's just not true. We were the only company besides the UFC that was doing arena shows that could do million dollar gates. We had a multimillion dollar deal with Showtime. We were bringing in seven figures a year from sponsorships and over seven figures a year from our international deals. We had a Rockstar deal. Full Tilt Poker. We had Shine International handling the foreign markets. We were a company that was making money on all of our events except for the Fedor fights.

The only reason we got sold is because Zuffa came in and offered to write a big check.

Yes it is, thanks a lot!