Mixed Martial Arts News: Bellator Fighting Championships to overtake UFC?
Bellator Fighting Championships promotes mixed martial arts (MMA) in the United States; founded in 2008, it has grown over a number of years while many other MMA promotions have fallen before even establishing themselves properly. Bellator has gained a lot of fans across the world unlike MMA promoters Affliction or EliteXC, who have been there since a while now.
So what is the difference between Bellator and other MMA promotion companies?
Bellator, unlike EliteXC or Affliction, is not solely based on showcasing boring fights in a cage, or on filling their seats up with random crowds to earn money. Experts say the first noticeable difference between Bellator and other competitors is the fact that they don’t promote players; instead, they concentrate on showcasing a fight between top-notch talents.
Bellator’s reputation is exclusively based on putting together fights between brilliant fighters, while Affliction and other MMA promoters have sacrificed their reliability by showcasing side shows.
Another smart move Bellator made was selling rights to various sports channels, which have captured a wide array of audience, since not everyone can afford pay-per-view every month. Broadcasting shows for free has opened doors to extra mixed martial art enthusiasts. UFC has free shows as well, but they are only shown few times a year while Bellator fights are shown periodically; they have also sold their rights to networks that do not repeat shows constantly (the excessive repetition naturally puts people off due to monotony).
Experts say one of the key assets of Bellator is their commentators; unlike UFC’s commentators, Bellator’s have unique perspectives and talk about other sports as well, giving a fresh new outlook to commentary. The promotion company’s main thought process behind the idea is that they believe MMA fans who tune in could possibly be fans of other sports as well, and contrasting MMA with other sports adds originality to the commentating technique.
Bellator’s main strategy is holding annual events in four different weight divisions; all of the fights take place the same night. This makes it easy for viewers to learn about the fighters they aren’t familiar with, as the previous round winners meet each other down the road as they continue to face various fighters. On the other hand, other promoters put athletes in the ring with no real direction in sight, which bores the audience, and hence, viewership is lost.
MMA enthusiasts appreciate the fact that Bellator does not try to copy UFC, unlike other promotion companies. The two biggest competitors in the MMA are Pride Fighting Championships and UFC; however, the only reason Pride stands where it does today is because they have more to offer than a fight taking place in an octagon, and also because they have their own set of rules and attitude.
Bellator has banked upon the same philosophy, and this has given it a position amongst the top ranked MMA promoters.
So who is the man behind Bellator and it’s growing success?
An unknown man who came to the MMA world two years ago named Bjorn Rebney brought a product to UFC fighters, Bellator. He is a man who does not even have a page on Wikipedia, but is well respected by the MMA nation. MMA enthusiasts say in his various interviews the man has talked about how serious he is about his MMA promotion company and knows about each of the players before they draft a fight between them. Putting on good shows for the mixed martial art fanatics is what they want to be their forte. Experts say that Bjorn is an entrepreneur who has the ability to make his company successful, and might just overtake UFC in the following years.
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