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Report: No Fox Sports Net affiliates will air Bellator’s show live tonight
By Zach Arnold | October 14, 2010
Michael David Smith is the bearer of the bad news, but given all the pre-emptions at this point I’m not surprised. Then again, baseball season is over and ESPN is the one with college football on Thursday nights, so what’s the reason this time around? Tonight’s Bellator show from Kansas City features their Heavyweight tournament finals (Cole Konrad vs. Neil Grove) and Bantamweight tournament finals (Ed West vs. Zach Makovsky). Also, Ryan Thomas vs. “Judo” Jim Wallhead and Michael Chandler vs. Chris Page.
UFC in London
The fight that is generating the most press, by far, for UFC 120 is Dan Hardy vs. Carlos Condit. Hardy has been talking non-stop and ripping into Greg Jackson for making fighters boring. Hywel Teague, who has left Fighters Only magazine and is now with ESPN, says Dan Hardy is making MMA entertaining again.
- Dan Hardy says Carlos Condit is a wide open target to punch
- Dan Hardy admits takedown concerns ahead of UFC 120
- Condit/Hardy match made after Joe Silva listened to a Condit radio interview (seriously?)
- Condit says he’s more technical than GSP at submissions and can make Hardy submit
Michael Bisping is in the main event slot of UFC 120 and he continues his usual confident stance heading into the fight against Yoshihiro Akiyama. Yes, he is favored to win (likely by decision), but if he continues to circle around in fights the way he did in the Dan Henderson UFC 100 debacle and the recent UFC fight against Dan Miller, Akiyama can tag him good.
Brent Brookhouse takes a look at the upcoming John Hathaway vs. Mike Pyle fight.
Check out the interesting comments from EA Sports President Peter Moore about what he thinks of his MMA video game and what he thinks of the marketplace.
For those wondering what the heck the Sherdog/EA Sports MMA Fighter Exchange program is about, read here. Jordan Breen on Twitter (here), Sherdog (here), and Esther Lin (here) have dispatches from various parts of the world with many fighters.
Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran and the art of gore. Give this article by Franklin McNeil a read, as I think you’ll like it.
Tom Wright says the plan in 2011 for UFC in Canada is to have three major events — Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. The Toronto event will be in the middle of ‘011.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Baseball being over just means that hockey and basketball are starting. In New York it runs on MSG+, which airs no baseball, but does air the Islanders and the Devils, plus the other area teams if everyone is playing on the same night.
What’s interesting is that tonight is actually a day where all the NY teams are off, and MSG+ is running a tape delayed senior tennis match at 8. In NY it’s easier for them to run live during baseball season because the mets and yankees have thier own channels, so I wonder why they aren’t running live in the #1 tv market when they get the chance, which won’t happen often in the fall/winter.
The MMA Fighter Exchange seems like a pretty neat idea for a reality show. In execution I doubt it will do much in terms of exposure or traction, since it’s just on the interwebz, but if say, the UFC were to ape this idea it would be a really cool spin-off from the increasingly stagnant TUF.
I get the idea that TUF is now a vehicle to promote a fight between the coaches at the end of the season, but this type of show could be an awesome way to continue promoting your popular fighters while exposing fans to new talent.
I’ll have to see it before it appears to be a good idea or not. Really depends on the quality of the athletes and the quality of the production.
Doesn’t this put Sherdog in a potential conflict of interest? Helping one organization cultivate talent while you have to cover the others?
Then again, if this thing doesn’t do well, nobody will care.
Absolutely – as I said, rather I should say, intimated, it’s all in the execution.
And yes I gotta think it’s definitely a conflict of interest to do something like this, especially since there’s a vested interest in it’s success ($$$ for Sherdog). Though is it any worse than something like Yahoo! Sports/MMA that runs PPV streams of UFC? I think not.
Agreed with both of you. The same people who still to this day hammer Yahoo because of the UFC relationship are apparently OK with Sherdog partnering with Strikeforce.
Its not any worse but I think its pretty clear to see that Sherdog is probably in actualized support of Strikeforce vis-a-vis EA sponsorship money. And that makes it the same and brings into doubt a lot of people’s credibility.
1. I haven’t had Bellator for about a month. I’m going to have to rely on the NBC 30 minute show, which I haven’t watched before since Bellator didn’t have a fight I wanted to see for a while.
This has to spell the end for Bellator. When they can’t get a 2 championship card shown by one affiliate, it means their TV deal isn’t worth anything. And now sponsors will pull out for both Bellator and fighters leaving everybody no choice but to cancel this whole thing.
It will be an interesting 6 months after their last card to see how they go out. Let’s see if they are honest about going out of business and find an easy way for fighters to compete again…. Or if they act like they are still going to be putting on cards and make everybody’s life a living h#ll.
2. Condit/Hardy should be getting the most press as it is the best fight on the card. I’m super excited for that fight.
Almost all of the FSN affiliates are busy hosting hockey or basketball games throughout the fall and winter. There’s usually a full slate of NHL games on Thursdays so I honestly wouldn’t expect Bellator to be shown live again on a national leave until the late spring.
The FSN deal they signed was a terrible one from the start. Bellator needs to find a cable channel that can air their product live without pre-emption if they want to stay afloat.
I know nothing about Bellator’s schedule; I have never seen one of their live shows, nor do I particularly care. There are only so many hours in the week to watch mma, and if a product is that poorly promoted, it doesn’t feel as important.
Like a lot of grown folk, I have a DVR and I used it for a change to watch this. I figure, hey, two tournaments ending, I’ll watch that.
-Judo Jim is a cool nickname, but there was basically no judo. Just sloppy standup. He beat some guy that bounced out of the UFC
who I don’t remember(Ryan Thomas) and it wasn’t a bad fight but I didn’t see anything that made me go “oh wow these are dudes”.-Zach Makovsky isn’t a bad fighter or anything. I saw him lose to Wilson Reis early in his career, and he still looks woefully undersized here. Like, Ed West was like 4 inches taller than him and more cut up. Makovsky could be beating the
shitout of BJ Kojima if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d only make like $5000 headlining Shinjuku FACE to do it. I have no idea how he would beat the really big guys in the WEC, but then its not like people who should be at 125lb can’t compete there.-Cole Konrad still looks so uncomfortable as a fighter. He’s got about 2 years before I’d like to see him take a step well up to the “next level”. Until he gets in the ring and is willing to really go for it instead of uncomfortably standing far away from a guy with no wrestling or grappling ability, there’s no reason to put him in with another strong grappler or well rounded competitor.
-Some white dude choked out another white dude. Mike Chandler might be something, but you can’t tell knocking over cans.
Gosh @ Condit!
I never paid him much attention before, now I’ve got my eyes on him.
And gosh @ this MMA.
Even when a card looks like a stinker, there always sems to be a gem in there.