The Bottom Line: Guarded Optimism

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

* * *
It has been a rough few years for Bellator MMA. Still likely the number two mixed martial arts organization in the world, its grip on that position is no longer quite so firm. A pivot towards older star fighters under Scott Coker undermined its ability to create new stars, and the promotion lost a good financial deal with DAZN, plus the wider availability that came with the Paramount Network. Most importantly, the promotion has struggled to put together fights that capture the public imagination on a month-to-month basis.

If the upcoming schedule of events is any indication, Bellator’s luck may finally be turning around. Its current home on Showtime is a logical fit, premised on the idea that paying subscribers are enticed to continue by monthly premium events. The numbers don’t need to be sky-high, so long as the people who do watch find value in what they get. It’s thus imperative for Bellator shows to feel like premium events, and after a quality double title fight headliner at Bellator 288 on Nov. 18, its next three shows are all enticing in terms of having real stakes for world-class competitors and having hooks to draw in broader interest.

The next event is Dec. 9 at the company’s frequent home of the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Bellator 289 is built around the promotion’s bantamweight grand prix. One semifinal features a showdown between Patrick Mix—coming off easily the biggest win of his career against Kyoji Horiguchi—and the only man to defeat Petr Yan outside the Ultimate Fighting Championship: Magomed Magomedov. However, the fight on which the show rests on is Raufeon Stots-Danny Sabatello, as they compete for the interim bantamweight title. If the event is a needle mover for Bellator, it won’t be because of the grand prix but because of the chaotic war of words that has transpired between Stots and Sabatello.

When fighters like Sabatello, Chael Sonnen or Colby Covington go over the top with trash talk, there’s always a portion of the MMA fan base turned off by the spectacle of it. It can feel manufactured and silly. There’s certainly an element of that with Sabatello. At the same time, it pretty much always attracts more viewers than it turns off. Braggadocio and bad blood go hand in hand with fighting, from Muhammad Ali to Conor McGregor. Stots seems genuinely annoyed by Sabatello’s shtick, and Sabatello is all in on promoting his fights. It’s not as if these are low-end fighters, either, with a collective 31-2 record.

The Bellator event on Dec. 31 at the famed Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, doesn’t have the grudge component of Stots-Sabatello, but it will have a great environment, a promotion-versus-promotion hook and two of the organization’s top stars—Patricio Freire and A.J. McKee—in separate fights. Kyoji Horiguchi and Juan Archuleta are also championship-level fighters competing on the card. There isn’t the star power of the last time Bellator and the Rizin Fighting Federation collaborated, when Quinton Jackson fought Fedor Emelianenko, in addition to bouts featuring Michael Chandler and Michael Page, but it’s still a collection of Bellator’s current top stars.

The top attraction on the calendar, however, is clearly Bellator 290 on Feb. 4, with Ryan Bader defending his heavyweight title in the retirement bout for the legendary Emelianenko. It speaks to the confidence Bellator and its television partners at Paramount Global have in the fight that it will be on CBS for the first time in years. As we saw recently with Frankie Edgar, MMA is a brutal sport for aging icons, but it is an opportunity for Emelianenko to write a storybook ending to his career.

Another signal that Bellator’s luck may be turning around is reflected in the co-feature, where Vadim Nemkov defends the light heavyweight title against Yoel Romero. The 45-year-old Romero challenging for the championship was targeted and announced before Nemkov’s grand prix final with Corey Anderson in the Bellator 288 headliner. To secure the solid co-feature, there needed to be a definitive, uninjured winner. That, of course, did not happen the first time Nemkov and Anderson fought, as a clash of heads led to a no contest. In the rematch, there was a hard clash of heads again early in the fight. Luckily, no one was cut. Later in the first round, Nemkov threw a hard kick at Anderson’s head while he was grounded. If it had connected, it might have meant another inconclusive finish. Instead, it barely missed, so Romero has an opponent for CBS.

It’s a nice slate of fights in a short span for Bellator, and the key question centers on how many fans will catch on. It’s a crowded MMA landscape, and promotions far and wide have struggled to grow their audiences. Ultimately, they’ve just got to put on the best cards they can and hope it leads to positive returns over time. Bellator’s coming months are an encouraging push in that direction.