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Bellator, PFL, RIZIN, ONE, and Fight Pass Thread (Can Crushing Edition)


Elsalvajeloco

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“I just want to let you guys know that I just got a call from the folks at the LFA and they basically informed me that they were getting a lot of pressure because I was at the Capitol,” Miletich said on Instagram. “I want you guys to know that the people I walked with at the Capitol, none of them that I know of were involved in any of the violence. I walked with white people, Black people, a lot of Chinese people who escaped communist China, who are for freedom. It was across the board it was people of different races, religions.

“But the LFA was getting a lot of pressure and unfortunately they felt they needed to distance themselves from me, which hey, I understand their position. I love all those guys, Ed [Soares] and Sven [Bean] and Mark [Bieri] and everybody, I love them. But the price of freedom is going to be heavy guys. Me losing my job is part of the pain. Even the people that pressured the LFA to get rid of me, I’m doing my best to fight for your freedom.”

Pat Miletich: Fighter, Trainer, Commentator, Freedom Fighter, and Full-time Delusional Lunatic

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Just saw Mikuru Asakura tweet he has 1.7 million YouTube subscribes. ?

Was reading about the RIZIN ratings and the second portion of the show was the highest rating at 7.3% with Tenshin's fight drawing the highest rating at 10.7%.

The numbers are way up compared to last years NYE card.

2019: 3.7%, 5.2%, 3.2%

2020: 4.1%, 7.0%, 6.0%

The report I read was crediting Shibatar's YouTube following for the bump in ratings and they were encouraging RIZIN to continue to feature fighters with big social media followings.

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On 1/13/2021 at 10:20 PM, The Natural said:

Yep. I think more people are aware now of what Matt Hughes is like through his autobiography recaps doing the rounds.

I've got Hughes in the pool of not making it through 2021 without something horrible happening. I wonder who he got to ghostwrite that thing for him.

Miletich has been a horrible sleazeball for such a long time that I see him being able to continue to get away with it. This was the same twat who only a few months ago was explaining how he would turn his metal cup inside out and sharpen the edges so that anyone who kicked him either accidentally or on purpose in the groin would instantly shred their leg. What a charming human being.

Why are we even a bit surprised when a guy whose job is beating the fuck out of other human beings turns out to be a bit of a wanker? I suspect that there are a lot more Matt Hughes / Colby Covington / Conor McGregor guys in MMA than there are Khabibs or Cowboy Cerrones (both of whom have impressed me as being really decent guys).

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Here is the write up from the WON website

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For the second time in six months, Bellator MMA will be moving their TV location within the Viacom family.

Mauro Ranallo, Bellator president Scott Coker and Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza made the announcement Tuesday that Bellator will be moving to Showtime exclusively in the U.S. starting on Friday, April 2nd -- the kickoff for three straight weeks of events. Coker said a big announcement for the European market is coming on Thursday or Friday.

This will be the first time the premium cable network will host MMA since the final Strikeforce show on January 12, 2013, before the organization folded into the UFC. The events will be live on Fridays starting at 9 PM Eastern.

In September, Bellator moved to CBS Sports Network for Thursday shows after a seven year run on Spike TV/Paramount Network that also included a short run on sports streaming service DAZN.

Espinoza gave no business reason for the move other than saying it was the right time to do it. While fellow premium pay channel HBO got out of the boxing business, Showtime has continued to be heavily involved with Espinoza saying the kickoff weekend will also feature a boxing event on Saturday.

April 2nd's Bellator 255 will feature featherweight champion Patricio Pitbull defending against Emmanuel Sanchez in a Featherweight Grand Prix tournament fight, while April 9th's Bellator 256 will see the kickoff of their first-ever Light Heavyweight Grand Prix with two fights followed by two more fights at Bellator 257 on April 16th. They also announced May 7th's Bellator 258 will feature bantamweight champion Juan Archuleta defending against Sergio Pettis.

Ranallo intimated he will be involved with the Bellator product, but it's unclear if that will be back in the play-by-play chair or as part of the presentation for the show.

 

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I will say this...Showtime is a much better place for Bellator as CBSSN is a non-factor. That wasn't going to stop the alarming viewership decline. With that said, the Showtime Boxing numbers have been pretty bad. Once Wilder, Spence, and some of those other guys migrated to Fox, there really hasn't been any really compelling fights. The pandemic only made it worse. Gervonta Davis vs. Leo Santa Cruz did good on PPV, but that's one card. If anything, Bellator going to Showtime is a result of how much their boxing schedule and the interest in it has waned. There was a window for Showtime to take over boxing on premium cable once HBO finally dropped boxing after their own steep decline in the quality of boxing programming. Fox's relationship with PBC closed that window pretty quickly. Now boxing on premium cable is just something that exists. Nobody really watches it but it's there.

I don't see a big crowd for Friday night MMA. Strikeforce did those Challenger cards (and prior to that EliteXC did the ShoXC cards) on Showtime on Friday, but I don't recall those cards doing particularly well. Moreover, that was when whatever company was secondary to UFC was getting more coverage than usual. I think it's going to be harder in this climate when UFC is putting on cards 3 out of 4 weeks in a given month, and sometimes every week in a given month. On top of that, having no bankable stars makes it even tougher.

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14 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I will say this...Showtime is a much better place for Bellator as CBSSN is a non-factor. That wasn't going to stop the alarming viewership decline. With that said, the Showtime Boxing numbers have been pretty bad. Once Wilder, Spence, and some of those other guys migrated to Fox, there really hasn't been any really compelling fights. The pandemic only made it worse. Gervonta Davis vs. Leo Santa Cruz did good on PPV, but that's one card. If anything, Bellator going to Showtime is a result of how much their boxing schedule and the interest in it has waned. There was a window for Showtime to take over boxing on premium cable once HBO finally dropped boxing after their own steep decline in the quality of boxing programming. Fox's relationship with PBC closed that window pretty quickly. Now boxing on premium cable is just something that exists. Nobody really watches it but it's there.

I don't see a big crowd for Friday night MMA. Strikeforce did those Challenger cards (and prior to that EliteXC did the ShoXC cards) on Showtime on Friday, but I don't recall those cards doing particularly well. Moreover, that was when whatever company was secondary to UFC was getting more coverage than usual. I think it's going to be harder in this climate when UFC is putting on cards 3 out of 4 weeks in a given month, and sometimes every week in a given month. On top of that, having no bankable stars makes it even tougher.

agreed on all accounts. 

For Bellator to have a good showing, they'll have to have a number of consistently great cards that get a good number of people watching, through a combination of heavy marketing by Showtime and anticipated high profile matchups. I wish them the best, but i just don't see that happening. 

Speaking from my own perspective only: As a pretty diehard MMA fan, Bellator has never interested me. When Strikeforce got swallowed by the UFC machine, Bellator should have risen to take its place as a quality fill-in. That never happened, and i think a lot of that is due to their overreliance on way-past-their-prime UFC stars. But Bellator wasn't using those guys to put over the next crop of fighters, they were just fighting each other in meaningless one-off matches. (wasn't everyone clamoring for Shamrock-Gracie III 20 years after the first matchup?) While the truth is, those matches drew ratings, Bellator never followed up and just haven't been able to build any momentum. Add to that their lackluster PPV attempts and you'll see a history of over promising and under delivering. 

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