After a 10-week hiatus, Wednesday night marks the return of Bellator MMA.
Kicking off their annual "Summer Series" at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla., Wednesday’s event is more than just a chance for the second-biggest organization in the sport to put their brand back out into the world for mass consumption; it’s also serves as a lead-in to their new "Fight Master" reality TV competition. As well, it represents their second attempt at having three of the biggest names on their roster prove they’re deserving of the constant attention and push they receive.
Last season’s eight-man light heavyweight tournament was built around a pair of former Strikeforce champions: Renato (Babalu) Sobral, whom the company promoted as an "MMA legend," and Muhammed (King Mo) Lawal, a charismatic talent from Bellator’s parent company, Viacom, signed to a lucrative contract that would see him compete in both MMA and the Impact Wrestling ring.
Slotted on opposite sides of the bracket, the consensus opinion heading into the event – and the best-case scenario for Bellator – was for the two established names to square off in the finals.
That plan fell apart right out of the gate, as Sobral was knocked out in the opening round of his opening match-up with Mikhail Zayats. While Lawal breezed through a first-round fight with an unknown Polish competitor, he too was felled prior to reaching the finals, as journeyman Emanuel Newton knocked him out in the semi-finals before defeating Zayats to win the tournament.
Both return tonight, once again on opposite sides of the bracket, only this time, instead of being two entrants in an eight-man field, the high profile pair make up half of the light heavyweight tournament.
Rather than rolling out the standard eight-man brackets for the Summer Series’ bantamweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight tournaments, Bellator has gone with a reduced field of four.
From a logistical standpoint, it lessens the chance of losing a fighter due to injury. Instead of having to compete twice before reaching the finals – and enduring a trio of training camps along the way – tonight’s winners in the light heavyweight and heavyweight tournaments only need one more win to punch their ticket to a title shot.
While it makes complete sense in terms of reducing the chance of a tournament stalling out due to injury – as has happened with the Season 8 welterweight finals, where a series of setbacks have kept Douglas Lima and Ben Saunders from sharing the cage again – you can’t help but feel like part of the impetus for changing the blueprint is to give Lawal a shorter road to a championship opportunity. As much as his loss to Newton helped reinforce the company’s "where title shots are earned" approach, you want your high-priced, high-profile free agent acquisition to produce a quality return on investment, and losing in the second round just doesn’t cut it.
Despite being on the downside of his career, Sobral is still a name as well, and arriving at the ideal pairing of he and Lawal in the finals is the biggest fight Bellator could have in the division.
The light heavyweight tournament hopefuls aren’t the only athletes receiving a second chance to make a first impression tonight inside the Bellator cage.
War Machine, the 31-year-old welterweight previously known as Jon Koppenhaver, steps into the cage for the first time in 19 months in the main card opener, taking on WEC vet Blas Avena.
Bounced from last season’s welterweight tournament before it began after suffering a knee injury, War Machine’s previous inactive stretch was brought on by a jail sentence. After building up his return earlier this year only to see him forced out with an injury, Bellator is once again putting their promotional efforts behind the talented, yet historically combustible fighter who first gained recognition during his time on Season 6 of The Ultimate Fighter.
There is no denying War Machine’s ability to generate buzz, but it has rarely been the kind of attention you’d hope for as an employer. Now that he’s ready to return to action, Bellator is once again banking on the infamous competitor becoming a fighter they can build around.
What’s interesting – at least to me – about the biggest names in Wednesday night’s event is that, in concert with the company’s recent signing of several "fresh-from-the-UFC" talents, it looks like Bellator has undergone a shift in approach. Ironically, it comes at a time when a trio of homegrown talents stand with championship belts around their waists, and are widely regarded as three of the best fighters competing outside of the UFC.
Pat Curran, Michael Chandler and Ben Askren all made their way to the top of their respective divisions by winning eight-man tournaments and then defeating the incumbent champion. They are the embodiment of Bellator’s slogan, but it seems that in an effort to continue gaining market share and generating interest in the brand, those homegrown stars are losing a portion of the spotlight to free agent acquisitions that have yet to prove themselves under the Bellator banner.
It seems curious that after spending eight seasons (and more than four years) growing from a grassroots organization with a unique approach and focus on cultivating new stars, everything about Wednesday’s Summer Series launch – and Fight Master, for that matter – feels recycled and overly manufactured.
Talents that built their names outside of the organization are being pushed as the biggest names on the roster, and given opportunities that weren’t necessarily afforded to the fighters like Curran, Chandler and Askren, who made their names in the Bellator cage when the spotlight on the company wasn’t as intense.
In a way, the Summer Series – and the first season of Fight Master – feels like a trial run on Bellator MMA 2.0, where the focus shifts from cultivating champions organically to opening the pocketbook and bringing in some established names in hopes of closing the gap between first and second place in the mixed martial arts organizational standings.
If that is indeed the case, Bjorn Rebney and company better hope that things go well Wednesday.