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I gave you, your first like... was it as good for you as it was for me?
Who will be the next big name mixed martial artist to sign with Bellator?
- Thread starter NinjaChristianWarrior
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I gave you, your first like... was it as good for you as it was for me?
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I'm starting to let go of my idealism's on having the majority of the best fighters in the world under 1 banner and seeing all the best fights. The reality is, the UFC doesn't have more than 50-60% of the worlds best fighters under their banner, and they aren't super interested in signing the best fighters and prospects unless they feel they are promotable enough for them.
Having so many elite fighters in Bellator, or looking at how disproportionately dominant Strikeforce and WEC fighters were upon the UFC signing them, it should be pretty clear that a lot of the worlds best fighters and prospects in MMA are not actually in the UFC, that quite a great many are scattered across the world in many different promotions. Hell the UFC has a lot of fighters on their roster that are so low level, they wouldn't hang in ACB, M-1, KSW, Bellator etc. It's a diluted protect that sells you it's brand as if it's the best similar to clothing, when often times you can equal or better quality for cheaper.
Michael McDonald better sign with Bellator next, he's a great Bantamweight ( better than a huge percentage of current UFC bantamweights ), he's still young and has a lot of natural talent, Bellator has a lot of good Bantamweights too.
The other people? Possibly Marlon Moraes, he's voiced interest in leaving WSOF and it looks like he now has. However Moraes is also open that he isn't interested in fighting for the UFC for the sake of it, he needs to be paid what he deserves. What if Bellator offers him the most out of the negotiations war? Bellator has a lot of leverage in Negotiations now since they don't deprive their athletes of sponsors. Gaethje maybe too? Joe Duffy of course! Bellator needs Middleweights terribly bad, maybe they can finally get their paws on Mamed Khalidov before he retires? Even Gegard Mousasi has chosen to fight out his contract, so he's going into free agency after the Weidman fight is the rumor.
My list of hopeful signings for Bellator are
Ben Askren
Joe Duffy
Mamed Khalidov
Marlon Moraes
Justin Gaethje
Gilbert Melendez
Having so many elite fighters in Bellator, or looking at how disproportionately dominant Strikeforce and WEC fighters were upon the UFC signing them, it should be pretty clear that a lot of the worlds best fighters and prospects in MMA are not actually in the UFC, that quite a great many are scattered across the world in many different promotions. Hell the UFC has a lot of fighters on their roster that are so low level, they wouldn't hang in ACB, M-1, KSW, Bellator etc. It's a diluted protect that sells you it's brand as if it's the best similar to clothing, when often times you can equal or better quality for cheaper.
Michael McDonald better sign with Bellator next, he's a great Bantamweight ( better than a huge percentage of current UFC bantamweights ), he's still young and has a lot of natural talent, Bellator has a lot of good Bantamweights too.
The other people? Possibly Marlon Moraes, he's voiced interest in leaving WSOF and it looks like he now has. However Moraes is also open that he isn't interested in fighting for the UFC for the sake of it, he needs to be paid what he deserves. What if Bellator offers him the most out of the negotiations war? Bellator has a lot of leverage in Negotiations now since they don't deprive their athletes of sponsors. Gaethje maybe too? Joe Duffy of course! Bellator needs Middleweights terribly bad, maybe they can finally get their paws on Mamed Khalidov before he retires? Even Gegard Mousasi has chosen to fight out his contract, so he's going into free agency after the Weidman fight is the rumor.
My list of hopeful signings for Bellator are
Ben Askren
Joe Duffy
Mamed Khalidov
Marlon Moraes
Justin Gaethje
Gilbert Melendez
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I'd say the UFC has more than 50-60% of the best fighters in the world under contract. That number is much closer 85%-90% if not higher. So more or less you are seeing the best against the best many more times than not. It was frustrating back in the Pride days. You could talk about dream match ups all day long in every weight class. Today, not so much.
No one will ever have every fighter under contract worth having. There will always be the Bellator's of the world down to the regional shows. Now your bigger shows will do what they can to hold on to top talent they have (ie: Chandler for Bellator). UFC or any org can't sign every up and comer, none of them have enough shows to keep people busy. The UFC isn't as much about home grown talent anymore, for the most part they moved past that. They look for guys who can come in and compete quickly (3 to 4 fights and then they can get in the mix with true solid talent).
The UFC's only goal is to have the most top fighters in the world that they see as top fighters by far. Does that mean a Rory once in awhile walks away, yes. But by no means does it take much away from the product if anything. They'll never let a star walk away.
P.S.: The UFC loves to gift wrap high valued name talent that doesn't draw well to there competition. Guys like Rory, Davis, and Bader look great on paper and there solid fighters no doubt. But based on the UFC's calculation(rarely ever wrong) they feel they aren't worth the money based on what they pull in. Could the UFC continue to pay these guys big salaries, sure. But by sending them to the comp they know they just made the comp pay big money every time they fight knowing they aren't going to produce ratings to justify the pay. Cards these guys fight on have a much higher chance of losing money and the bean counters behind the scenes will take notice. Don't think twice that the bean counters at Spike aren't wondering why a Bjorn show done on the super cheap vs a Coker show done for much more money isn't really producing drastically different ratings that they get there money from. If these guys don't come through in the ratings department it makes things look much worse for Coker and company. Some of these releases are very calculated from a business side for Zuffa to do nothing but help sabotage the competition from within.
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There's..just so much wrong with this. The rest of what you said is mindless rhetoric everyone's already aware of, but this here is just lol...so wrong.
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OSP.
Why? Because Bellator likes to have Jimmy Smith introduced athletic fighters onto the stage as they come out to rap music. It just seems like a Bellator trend. They've done it with Linton Vessel, Rampage, Davis, Mighty Mo, Limited Carmont, Newton, Daley, Kongo, etc.
Why? Because Bellator likes to have Jimmy Smith introduced athletic fighters onto the stage as they come out to rap music. It just seems like a Bellator trend. They've done it with Linton Vessel, Rampage, Davis, Mighty Mo, Limited Carmont, Newton, Daley, Kongo, etc.
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I don't think you'll find a single person in the business that doesn't think the UFC has a large majority of the best fighters in the world. Much higher than 50% to 60%. I'd love to hear about all these elite guys that aren't in the UFC. Cause there must be one hell of an org. that I don't know about. If what your saying was true you'd have an org with a similar quality roster to the UFC that you could argue match ups all day long from FW to HW. At this point you have a hard time arguing there is more than 25 fighters outside of the UFC that would compete at the top of there respected division regardless of org and many are in Bellator. The rest are one or two fighters from various orgs around the world.
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Upon looking at the tops (Fight Matrix) in LHW UFC has 39% of the top 100 while Bellator has 11%.
