I didn't really get to talk about the double Bellator events last Friday and Saturday, so I figured I would mention them now, even if it is a little late. I think the first thing I want to talk about is the fact that there were two cards to begin with. Bellator cards are known for being notoriously thin to begin with, but then to try to scrap together enough fights for two separate cards was an interesting decision. The Saturday card had 13 total fights including the rare postliminary card and the Friday card only had 8 fights with only a few of them being even remotely interesting. I know that Bellator is the UFC's main competition and they have the second best roster in MMA, but the UFC isn't in a position to put on 21 fights in a weekend, let alone Bellator. I'm really not sure why the Friday card needed to happen. They should have just put the Carmouche/Velasquez fight and Danny Sabatello on the Saturday event and taken off some of the random prelim fights and been done with it.
I've said this before, but I really don't understand why Bellator tries to go head to head with the UFC. It makes no sense to me. I'm sure there are some people out there who just hate Dana and the UFC brand enough to choose Bellator over them, but that is such a small minority of the fan base. There isn't anything about MMA that is beholden to Saturday nights either. Just stick to Fridays and instead of trying to be the UFC's direct competitor, just be an additional option to watch more MMA on another day of the week. College football doesn't try to have their games on Sunday to compete with the NFL. It just really doesn't make much sense and I think Bellator suffers for it. Even if their card from top to bottom is better, the UFC has the fan base that is committed to them and they'll always pull more, at least for the foreseeable future. The PFL is on during the week and I don't have to choose between them and another promotion. I get to see basically all of their events because they don't go head to head with their own sport.
Bellator also just refuses to promote their events or fighters in any way. The UFC doesn't promote anything either, but at least they can say that they have the market cornered and make money without promoting. I'm sure Bellator is making money, but I don't see why they do so little to get attention on their fighters. I would say Bellator is pretty safe in their standing in the industry, but I don't think they're so far ahead of the PFL that they can't be caught. Also, they're a lot closer to being caught by the PFL than they are to catching the UFC, so I don't get the complacency. I would go as far as to say that the Bellator roster is in the best spot it has ever been. They have fighters in almost every division who is in the conversation to be in the UFC's top 5 and a division or two that one could argue is straight up better than the UFC's, namely light heavyweight. It is ultimately up to the consumer to find out who Raufeon Stots, AJ McKee, and Vadim Nemkov are and I don't think that should be completely the case. Of course the promotion can only do so much and I'm not saying that Aaron Pico should be a household name, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try either. I think a lot more people know who Conor McGregor is than have ever watched an MMA fight, so the potential is there. Bellator makes a lot of very odd decisions that I would be genuinely curious to hear them explain, but I doubt they would give us legitimate answers.
I guess I should stop complaining at least a little because for as much negative as I have gone through, I still did enjoy the fights as much as I could. The Friday card was pretty uneventful all things considered. The prelims had some finishes, but they weren't fights that I could say I was looking forward to or knew anything about going into. The main card was fine and built up to a main event with a controversial ending. The champion, Julianna Velasquez was winning the fight on the scorecards, but ended up in a bad position late in round four. Liz Carmouche ended up advancing the the crucifix position and was landing some elbows as the clock was ticking down. The elbows weren't very heavy and weren't doing a ton of damage, but Velasquez wasn't answering them in any way. She couldn't change the position and wasn't really even able to get her hand up to block or deflect the strikes either. With only 13 seconds left in the round, the referee stepped in and stopped the fight and some weren't sure that was the right call. I don't have a particularly passionate opinion on this one to be honest. I'm ok with the stoppage, but I would have been equally as ok if they let it go. There really wasn't much damage being done, so the argument was there to allow the fight to continue, but as many stated, absorbing double digit unanswered elbows to the head is probably grounds to stop the fight if the referee chooses to do so. It was one of those 50/50 calls and the referee opted on the side of preserving the fighters health, so I'm not going to complain about it.
The Saturday card was honestly pretty solid. The bantamweight division across all combat sports is just so good right now and Bellator is no exception. Danny Sabatello the night before and then Mix/Horiguchi and Stots/Archuleta were all so much fun. Not too long ago, Horiguchi looked like he was going to win a decision over Sergio Pettis and become the champion, but a Hail Mary spinning backfist later he loses that fight and now loses in the first round of the grand prix. Patchy Mix is a real problem and contender to win the whole thing. Raufeon Stots is a problem as well and now holds the interim belt. I really can't wait to see how the rest of the grand prix plays out. It is most certainly the best thing Bellator has on the schedule probably for the rest of the year, at least right now. It was good to see Yancy Medeiros pick up a win on the main card as well. Justine Kish was able to get a win of her own over the former champion Ilima-lei Macfarlane. I do feel good for fighters when they end up leaving the UFC and then find success elsewhere.
Speaking of leaving the UFC, Cris Cyborg was the main event and she's still really good. It seems to be trending towards her leaving Bellator, at least in the short term, when her contract expires this summer. It seems like there is momentum towards her signing with the PFL so they can put together the Kayla Harrison fight and that will be a welcome sight for the both of them honestly. Bellator has kind of slacked off in bringing in new and interesting competition for Cyborg and I think interest in seeing her fight is probably as low as it has been in awhile. Cyborg herself is still great and is aging about as well as anyone could ask for, but she's now left to dominate rematches that no one wants to see. If Bellator isn't going to bring in the competition for her to fight, then she will have to go where the big fights are and there is none bigger than Kayla Harrison right now. I was secretly hoping that Kayla would leave the PFL when her contract was up, but after they matched the Bellator offer, that hope was dead. We may be able to get the fight in the PFL and I'm hoping so badly that we get to see it. I think both women want this fight and it is clearly the biggest fight to make, maybe in all of women's MMA. Neither of them are particularly young with Cyborg at 36 and Harrison at 31. Harrison obviously has the age advantage, but she has tons of competition under her belt, so I'm not sure how many years she really wants to keep doing this. It also seems like it would be extremely draining for her to cut to even 145, so that may limit her career as well because women's 155 is almost nonexistent. Hopefully we get to see this fight or at least hope that Bellator gets Cyborg some better fights.
I think that is it from me on these cards. It was still fun and the crowd was great, but Bellator just makes some very odd choices in my opinion. What did you guys think? What is your opinion on the stoppage of Carmouche/Velasquez? Who is your favorite to win the bantamweight grand prix? What should they try to do with Cyborg? Did anyone steal the show for you? Leave your comments below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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