Overeem fails drug test. Looks to be out of UFC 146

There is very little production and that's what I love about it. Being owned by Viacom probably means they will be around for a while. They've already announced plans for more tournaments. That's great news for MMA fans because Bellator rarely disappoints.

The quality of the fighters is fantastic for a promotion being shown on MTV2. Bellator probably employs 4 or 5 fighters in the top 10 in their respective weight classes in the world.

But more importantly, their cards are almost entertaining. The idea that winning a tournament garners a $100K pay day seems to motivate the shit out these fighters. Most of the best MMA moments so far in 2012 have happened in Bellator for me.

Again, you really need to watch these things before commenting.

 

I think the problem is, back in the day, fighters literally came from various disciplines. That's what made it so appealing. Nowadays, ALL of the fighters basically come from the same dojos and training academies. Nobody learns Karate or Sambo for years and years and then tries to use it in MMA. They now do purely wrestling while trying to learn some striking, or are pure strikers trying to learn enough on the ground to avoid being taken down. They all learn to fight the exact same way. It's become very technical which makes for bad television at times.
Obviously hardcore mma fans are protective of the sport but let's be honest, it's a very tiny group of fans. Most of the money comes from those who are expecting bloodbaths ala Griffin/Bonnar which is what skyrocketed interest in the UFC. The casuals who don't understand the sport brought the money. When they see sh*t like GSP vs Fitch or boring crap where 2 guys are trying to time eachother or just mucking about for 5 rounds, it leaves a bad taste.
Adding to that, every other MMA promotion is dying or dead. So it goes to show that MMA is NOT on the rise. It has it's tiny group of hardcore fans much like the WWE does. But it's not making a killing anywhere.
Only the UFC is making any real money and 3/4 of the calendar of UFC events aren't even hitting past 400k buys which means Dana White had false hopes that his UFC promotion was going to literally become the biggest thing since sliced bread. LOL! In his words "Bigger than the NFL".
The death of 99% of MMA promotions out there proves MMA really is just a fad overall. People aren't paying to see Joe Blows grope eachother on the ground for 5 rounds.

 

The fighters can't make a full time income doing MMA. There's not enough money coming into these promotions to allow these fighters to do MMA as a job. Nobody can survive on $5,000 or $10,000 per fight unless they can fight once every 2 weeks. Factor in taxes and training expenses and medical bills.

 

They never really had the money to pay. Hell Tim Sylvia was paid $900,000 for fighting Fedor (to everybody's shock) and the company then went belly up immediately. LOL! It was obvious.

 

Yep.. Whenever anyone bitches about UFC's pay scale, remember Affliction.

The "Affliction: Banned" card, which featured Fedor-Sylvia, had a fighter payout of $3.3 million and only generated a live gate of around $2 mil and less than 100K PPV's..

That's the recipe for folding. Apparently Affliction was run by idiots like Mike that have no idea about business.

 

Exactly. When a small org starts looking to be bigger than they are, they are setting themselves up for failure. Affliction ran out trying to sign all these name guys to put on one big show and they found out the hard way.