Can Bellator MMA Overtake The UFC as Number One?

Can Bellator MMA Overtake The UFC as Number One?
August 2, 2017
By Ryan Porzl

Since 2007, The Ultimate Fighting Championship has been the undisputed number one Mixed Martial Arts promotion in the world following Zuffa's (UFC's former parent company) purchase of the Japanese based PRIDE Fighting Championships. Since then, many companies have come and gone including those who tried to compete with the UFC such as EliteXC and Strikeforce while The UFC has come off untouchable. However, with recent events from The UFC as well as the rise of Bellator MMA since it's purchase to Viacom and former Strikeforce head Scott Coker as it's leader, the gap has gotten smaller. While Bellator MMA is still a long way from completely overtaking The UFC and won't do it tomorrow, the pieces are in place for them to one day do so and I'll explain why The UFC's time at top could be coming to an end eventually.



They've been able to chip away at UFC's roster. In the past, most companies usually couldn't get anywhere near UFC's top stars and only got either washed up has-beens or those cut who didn't make it in the UFC. However, in recent years, Bellator has been successfully able to raid UFC of a lot of their talent and continue to pursue any free agent. While Bellator has gotten washed up fighters recently like Tito Ortiz, Stephen Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, and Roy Nelson, the promotion has also been able to get top fighters with many having been ranked on UFC's own rankings. Among the names include Phil Davis, Ryan Bader, Michael McDonald, Rory MacDonald, Matt Mitrione, Benson Henderson, Lorenz Larkin, and recently, Gegard Mousasi over the last two years. One of the big things that's supposed to seperate The UFC from every other company is that they're the place with the elite compete and for a decade have successfully been able to convince many that the only way to be elite or the best is to fight in the UFC and that it was the place where the elite fought. However, with Bellator able to take more and more fighters from them especially not only those ranked on UFC's rankings but also able to convince those fighters to leave instead of UFC cutting them, it slowly destroys that image. If Bellator can take more fighters then it becomes clearly to even the biggest zombie that not all the best fighters are in The UFC and you don't have to be there to be elite. If The UFC loses that image then they got nothing that makes them stand out or more special then any other company around the world with the exception of their name and history but even that can only get them so far especially when companies like Pancrase and Shooto have been around longer and they're not lighting the MMA world on fire as much anymore as they did 15 to 25 years ago. Best of all, Bellator can gain a lot from these signings and we've seen most of the benefits. One is the company gets champions that are recognized by casual fans like Phil Davis and Ryan Bader both being Light Heavyweight Champion. Another is a Bellator champion beats the established UFC name and elevates their names like Andrey Koreshkov retaining the Welterweight Championship against Benson Henderson and Douglas Lima retaining the Welterweight Championship against Lorenz Larkin. Another benefit could be if an international fighter wins the title that can help Bellator expand internationally with the best example being Rory MacDonald. At one point, Canada was one of the UFC's biggest markets when Georges St-Pierre was Welterweight Champion and one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world but when St-Pierre took time off, MacDonald never got the title like they thought, and no other Canadian big names or prospects to step up, they declined. Should MacDonald become the Bellator Champion, Bellator could potentially do with him what the UFC wanted and have him be the elite Canadian champion that could attract a Canadian fanbase. Only now, Bellator, who haven't been to Canada in a long time, could get a foothold into Canada and add a new country as a frequent stop on their world tour.

However, Bellator aren't just relying on just these recent signings as they have plenty of great talent. The talent includes those established during the Bjorn Rebney era like Michael Chandler, Pat Curran, The Pitbull Brothers, Marcos Galvao, Joe Warren, Eduardo Dantas, Douglas Lima, and Alexander Shlemenko. Prospects brought in by both Rebney and Coker including Steve Garcia, Philipe Lins, Augusto Sakai, James Gallagher, Daniel Weichel, Goiti Yamauchi, Linton Vassell, Hisaki Kato, Chris Honeycutt, Adam Piccolotti, and Michael Page. There's also familiar names that didn't come from the UFC including King Mo Lawal, Fedor Emelianenko, Sergei Kharitonov, Melvin Manhoef, Bobby Lashley, and Paul Daley as well as UFC alumnis like Cheick Kongo, Rampage Jackson, Kendall Grove, Wanderlei Silva, Chael Sonnen, Alessio Sakara, and Rafael Cavalcante. The promotion has also been hiring stand out amateur wrestlers including Aaron Pico, Joey Davis, Ed Ruth, Logan Storley, Romero Cotton, Jarod Trice, and Tyrell Fortune as well as some of Emelianenko's men including Anatoly Tokov, Valentin Moldavsky, and Vadim Nemkov with all of them having potential. We've also seen some of Bellator's up and comers beginning to come into their own with Darrion Caldwell scheduled to challenge Dantas for the Bantamweight Championship, Brent Primus upset Michael Chandler due to injury to win the Lightweight Championship, Rafael Carvalho is the current Middleweight Champion, and Liam McGeary, despite being in a slump, is the former Light Heavyweight Champion. Obviously, not all these new signings and prospects will be successful but they do have potential and many will play big parts of Bellator's future. Not to mention that it shows Bellator isn't just picking away at UFC's roster but are looking everywhere for talent.

The UFC is in clear decline. Five to ten year ago, The UFC was untouchable but now they're the most vulnerable they've been since 2005 right before The Ultimate Fighter premiered. While most of the blame has been given to new owners WME-ING, the problems started to creep up towards the end of the Zuffa era. The UFC has now seemingly fallen into every single trap that the sport of Boxing fell into and the traps many believe hurt the sport. The UFC was supposed to be the place where the best in the world competed against each other with stacked cards instead of one fight shows. Now, it's the exact opposite as champions are in contract disputes which isn't anything new but it's still an issue, champions are also more interested in "money fights" than facing the top ranked, and shows at times have one or two big fights despite having five fights on a main card. Not to mention we're seeing big names successfully lobby for big boxing fights while others have toyed with the idea. Most of the divisions are a complete mess for one reason or another. The Women's Divisions have good talent but not a lot of depth in them while the Women's Bantamweight lost it's big star in Ronda Rousey while Holly Holm and Miesha Tate dropped the title in their first defense with Tate having since retired. The Flyweight Division is ruled by Demetrious Johnson and though he's arguably the best fighter in the world today, he's never caught on with fans regardless of his dominance or finishing fights but it doesn't help that he doesn't have any threats to his title. The Bantamweight Division is in a transitional period with the retirement of top contender Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz losing the title to Cody Garbrandt only for Garbrandt to suffer an injury. The Featherweight division is a mess with Conor McGregor winning the belt and then getting stripped of the title after moving up to Lightweight while the champions since in Aldo and Holloway have already lost to him. Speaking of McGregor, he's created a log jam at Lightweight since winning that title due to him pursuing a boxing fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. while an interim title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson went up in smoke when Nurmagomedov pulled out due to bad weight cut. The Welterweight Division has flown under the radar since Georges St-Pierre went on his leave of absence in late 2013. The Middleweight Division is a circus with champion Michael Bisping avoiding top ranked fighters in favor of "money fights" with a retiring Dan Henderson and the MIA Georges St-Pierre. The Light Heavyweight Division is basically just the Jon Jones/Daniel Cormier show with no one rising up the ranks as potential threats while the division has lacked depth with the retirement of Anthony Johnson and Alexander Gustafsson suffering injuries. The Heavyweight Division features a talented Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic but he's currently sitting out on a contract dispute while Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos have clearly seen better days due to injuries and wars while the rest of the Heavyweight division is filled with aging names.

Along with their divisions having issues, ratings and pay-per-view buyrates are in decline. In fact, the first half of 2017 up until UFC 214, no show did better than 300,000 buys. Worse of all, the company has clearly struggled to build new stars and it's gotten to the point where only Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, and Jon Jones are the only fighters guaranteed to deliver a huge buyrate or at least one million but McGregor is pursuing boxing fights, Rousey may be retired & even if she returns it's a near guarantee that her value has plummeted due to the two bad losses, and Jones is unreliable due to past drug test failures and legal problems. Meanwhile, the UFC seems to be going down the professional wrestling route in finding stars as they seem want fighters to have a good "look" or can trash talk and cut promos. While this worked for some like Conor McGregor, the problem is that this has resulted in UFC banking on unproven, young prospects and letting elite fighters slip through their fingers. The best example is Sage Northcutt and Paige VanZant who both have great looks and bodies but have yet to prove themselves. Before either did anything of note, Dana White was touting them specifically as future stars while Sage Northcutt has done a commercial for the UFC with Demetrious Johnson while Paige VanZant was signed to a Reebok sponsorship deal after only one fight with White justifying it by saying VanZant had an "it factor". Meanwhile, the UFC wouldn't give their number four ranked Gegard Mousasi more money despite his success with Dana White claiming "He Doesn't Sell Tickets" which allowed for a reunion between Mousasi and his former Strikeforce boss & Bellator CEO Scott Coker in Bellator. Plus, the UFC has been criticized with their Reebok deal and fighter pay which likely has given Bellator an edge in negotiations.

They have worldwide TV deals, have begun expanding to other markets, and have been smart in the countries they've chosen. In the past, a lot of American MMA promotions probably only aired in America and possibly Canada. Bellator currently airs in 138 countries. If you're gonna become a competitor to The UFC, you definitely need to expand to a global audience as it adds revenue and makes the company a bigger name which helps since no national promotion can be a competitor to a global one and there may be other countries out there who prefer Bellator over UFC. Bellator has also begun making international travels as they've begun holding shows in England, Ireland, Hungary, Italy, and Israel. Bellator has also been very smart when it comes to picking the countries they've toured. Outside of England and Ireland, the UFC has never toured these countries and it was clever for Bellator to begin international expansion in countries The UFC have never held a show in. It's also clever that they didn't go for the knee jerk countries like Brazil and Japan since The UFC goes to Brazil all the time while Japan has many companies like Rizin and hasn't been a hotbed since PRIDE went under in 2007 and both have been done to death. Meanwhile, they haven't picked countries that have national promotions unless they've partnered up. ONE's already got control of most of Asia, M-1 has Russia, and KSW has Poland where they are just coming off a 57,776 attendance at their recent KSW: Colisseum shows. The one exception is England and Ireland where they've partnered with BAMMA (British Association of Mixed Martial Arts) for their shows. This is also smart as it prevents Bellator from stepping on toes while also partnering with the local promotions which can only help them since they have a fanbase.

The promotion is owned by Viacom who are committed. In the past, promotions that tried to compete with the UFC didn't have either committed people behind them or the resources. Coker knows this too well as it cost him Strikeforce. When he attempted to grow Strikeforce in 2008, he sold 50% stake to Silicon Valley Sports Entertainment which helped him sign fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson as well as acquiring EliteXC's video library and their TV deals on ShoTime and CBS. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley Sports Entertainment were not that committed and we more interested in other ventures including Basketball so when an opportunity came to potentially bring an NBA team to San Jose, they wanted out and immediately sold to Zuffa with Coker being forced to sell his stake when he couldn't buy it back. That's not the case with Bellator as Viacom is committed having owned the promotion for the last five years and have put money and promotion behind it while Spike TV is behind it. Coker did great work with Strikeforce and showed growth and that was with a group that wasn't committed so imagine what he can achieve with a backer that's committed and we've already begun to see with the company signing all sorts of fighter including out bidding UFC for their fighters to running more arenas to running international shows. 

Again, will Bellator overtake UFC tomorrow or next year? No. Do they have potential to one day overtake UFC? Absolutely. With committed support, growing around the world, signing away UFC talent, acquiring great prospects, and the UFC's own declining fortunes give Bellator a chance to perhaps one day be the premiere MMA promotion around the world. It's an exciting time to be fan of Bellator and the sport if you're interested in competition.