As expected, Bellator MMA is restructuring its format next year to focus on superfights and “tentpole” events rather than tournaments, the promotion’s new president, Scott Coker, today told MMAjunkie.
Bellator will kick off its 11th season at Bellator 123 on Sept. 5 in Connecticut, wrapping up lightweight and light-heavyweight tournaments from the 10th season before a season finale in mid-November that could feature a welterweight bout between Melvin Manhoef and Paul Daley, Coker said.
Manhoef is scheduled to fight Doug Marshall at Bellator 125 and will need to win in order to receive an offer for Daley, Coker added.
No new tournaments will be promoted for Season 11, according to a Bellator official, but title shots earned under the previous format will be honored.
In 2015, Bellator will shift from its usual format (two 12-week seasons and a trio of “Summer Series” events) to one event per month, Coker said, in addition to four major shows that feature the promotion’s “needle-movers,” for a total of 16 yearly events. All of them will air on Spike TV.
“That’s going to be our season,” said Coker, who took over for former Bellator head Bjorn Rebney in June. “We’re going to do 16 instead of 26, but the fights will be much larger, and the venues will have time to promote and really make it an event and not just a weekly TV show.”
As before, Coker said he will reserve the right to hold tournaments in the event that Bellator has at least four top-tier fighters that could face off, but as with the now-defunct Strikeforce promotion (which Coker previously headed), the competitions likely will take place over several months to provide ample time to build and market each event.
“I want to keep those options open,” Coker said. “We’ve thrown those tournaments over time. We’ve thrown one-night tournaments with the middleweight and the women’s division. We’re going to make a decision when the time’s right.”
The monthly events, as well as the major events, are expected to air with Bellator’s longtime broadcast partner, Spike TV. Coker didn’t rule out a future event on pay-per-view, but he opined that the promotion should focus on cable TV.
“To me, I think that we should be on Spike TV and building the next wave of stars in front of 100 million households,” he said. “There will be a time probably in the future where we can definitely go back to the PPV business, but for the foreseeable future, I see us as a Spike property.
“We’re going to put on the best fights we can put on, and we’re going to put on fights that the fans want to see. I think you might see a tournament at some point in 2015, but right now, I’m not ready to commit to that. But we’re going to see some big event and big fights, and fights that are going to move the needle.
“To me, one of the things we really have to focus on is, look, if you put on a bunch of fights that people don’t want to watch, then you’re going to have a very short business. And we have a good enough roster right now to make big fights in the future. I’m excited about the prospects coming up and the prospects we’re signing. We’re going back into the female fight division, and we might even start another female division in another weight class. We’re going to start building this thing up. I think it’s going to look a lot different in 18 months than it does today.”
