Bellator Grand Prix Shows How Dumb Tournaments Can Be

[EndlessCritic]

On one side of the bracket we now have an AJ Mckee vs Darrion Caldwell semifinal. This is a great fight.

On the other side, we have Patricio Freire fighting Carvalho in one quarterfinal, and Sanchez vs Weichel in another.


Currently, AJ Mckee is the clear #1 contender. Yet because of this goofy tournament, we have to wait to see him get a title shot.

More importantly, assuming Freire beats Carvalho, Freire will have to fight the winner of Sanchez/Weichel. This is pretty dumb considering Freire already beat both of those guys in 2018.

tldr: tournaments are dumb. The champion should fight the #1 contender.

 

[GueseGuy]

On one side of the bracket we now have an AJ Mckee vs Darrion Caldwell semifinal. This is a great fight.

On the other side, we have Patricio Freire fighting Carvalho in one quarterfinal, and Sanchez vs Weichel in another.


Currently, AJ Mckee is the clear #1 contender. Yet because of this goofy tournament, we have to wait to see him get a title shot.

More importantly, assuming Freire beats Carvalho, Freire will have to fight the winner of Sanchez/Weichel. This is pretty dumb considering Freire already beat both of those guys in 2018.

tldr: tournaments are dumb. The champion should fight the #1 contender.

The fighters picked where they are. Blame them.

 

[tehMoose]

At least we will see who is the best of the bunch. Meanwhile in UFC the champs mostly pick favorable matchups and keep ducking the bad matchups until they lose so they won't have to fight them anymore.

 

[Guffman]

I kind of liked the way they set this up with the selection show and all. I was entertained. Covid put the brakes on it, but otherwise it's moved along a lot better than the WW tournament did.

 

[CC27]

At least we will see who is the best of the bunch. Meanwhile in UFC the champs mostly pick favorable matchups and keep ducking the bad matchups until they lose so they won't have to fight them anymore.

Who is that?

Stipe is fighting Ngannou
Jan is either fighting Glover or Izzy
Izzy is either fighting Whittaker again or Jan
Usman is fighting Burns
With Khabib out you're gonna get Conor/Dustin, Justin, Tony, assuming Khabib doesnt return at some point any of those top 4 are gonna fight
Volk is fighting Ortega
Yan is fighting Sterling
Fig is fighting Perez
Nunes/Anderson
Zhang/Rose
Valentina/Maia

Every single div is having the champ fight a top contender.

 

[tehMoose]

Who is that?

Stipe is fighting Ngannou
Jan is either fighting Glover or Izzy
Izzy is either fighting Whittaker again or Jan
Usman is fighting Burns
With Khabib out you're gonna get Conor/Dustin, Justin, Tony, assuming Khabib doesnt return at some point any of those top 4 are gonna fight
Volk is fighting Ortega
Yan is fighting Sterling
Fig is fighting Perez
Nunes/Anderson
Zhang/Rose
Valentina/Maia

Every single div is having the champ fight a top contender.

I'm not talking right now. In general these last few years. Tony was Khabib's toughest opponent and of course that didn't happen. Why is Conor only fighting strikers? Bisping ducked every legit threat and fought one old guy and one retired guy. Way too many examples dude, I can make a really long list..

I get that the companies try to protect some fighters also but come on..sometimes it's annoying

 

[2004 account]

Yea cause the ufc is better, picking whoever they want to gift a title shot to... Not even based on rankings. Hmmmm

 

[Hellowhosthat]

I'm not talking right now. In general these last few years. Tony was Khabib's toughest opponent and of course that didn't happen. Why is Conor only fighting strikers? Bisping ducked every legit threat and fought one old guy and one retired guy. Way too many examples dude, I can make a really long list..

I get that the companies try to protect some fighters also but come on..sometimes it's annoying

Doesn't happen much. You can't say they didn't try to make Khabib and Tony happen. Conor fought Chad Mendes and Khabib so you can't say he only fights strikers.

The Bisping one I agree with, but other than that UFC champs don't duck people and if they do they get stripped like GDR did.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Since this tournament started I was only excited for Freire vs AJ in the finals. Covid made this a long ass wait. Hopefully this will go smoothly and we don't see an injury of a winner.

 

[EndlessCritic]

Why is Conor only fighting strikers?

Yeah the UFC really protected Mcgregor by making him fight Poirier and Holloway en route to his title shot.

 

[noizer]

If done right tournaments can be pretty exciting. If AJ truly is the best contender out there then he will eventually face the champion.

only downside with tournaments are injuries imo.

 

[Deleted member 580830]

Tournament are great because they reduce cherry picking.
But they often drown prospect in the deep water too soon.

Still better than cherry picking however.

 

[skylolow]

Tournaments today are almost worthless for the most part. It really is more of gimmick than anything else.

With how many shows and fighters these orgs have now the matchmakers behind the scenes more or less are running hybrid tournaments with the fights we get all the time. At least matchmakers with some foresight into the future do this. Bellator is just horrible at looking into the future with matchmaking so it's an easy way out for them. Not to mention the divisions are thin at the top and the reality is these guys would all be fighting each other regardless of the tournament going on this year or at least should be. So it really isn't accomplishing anything or making anything really fair.

Tournaments today are really only interesting when its a mix of weight classes and maybe bringing in a few new fighters from the outside. Where fans get to see match ups we normally would probably never get to see. It was one of the big reasons why Pride's Grand Prix's came off so damn well.

 

[TheBrownRanger]

I love AJ vs Caldwell. The winner of that vs Pitbull will definitely be a good build up.

Not digging Pitbull vs Sanchez 2, but what can you do?