Bellator is a bad place for young prospects right now

AimedWithV

AimedWithV

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Really.

Why would any young prospect sign with Bellator right now?
They will either fight in the prelims, or will use as mismatches against some semi-top "supestars", like Thomson and Daley.
And if they dare to win a "superstar" fight by some crazy chance, Bellator will bury them in prelims like forever - like they did with Burley, who beat Jenkins.

Has any of the fighters that participated in Bellator 149 earned something extra for being in the "legendary" event? I think on the contrary...Vassell has the most important win in his career, and no one will care.

If I were a young fighter making my way to major leagues, and too inexperienced for the UFC, I'd try my luck in WSOF or Asia.
 
I think this Kimbo/Dada fight was good for Bellator actually. It was hilarious and ended spectacularly.
 
basementdweller said:
I think this Kimbo/Dada fight was good for Bellator actually. It was hilarious and ended spectacularly.
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For Bellator? Sure! A lot of casuals bought and brought $$$ to Coker and Viacom.

For young prospects? Disaster.
 
AimedWithV said:
If I were a young fighter making my way to major leagues, and too inexperienced for the UFC, I'd try my luck in WSOF or Asia.
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It's best to crush cans on some regional circuit. For example, UFC just signed Serbian HW Mihajlovic that wasn't even tested against the best fighters in Balkan promotions. So the ones that were fighting against the best available in the region were dummies, even dumber were those from the region that were fighting in Russian promotions.
 
The worst thing you can do as a young prospect is beat one of the name fighters in bellator. They'll banish you to the prelims.
 
Kills me that Michael Page is stuck in Bellator..
 
I agree with this thread. It also sucks that you will get further crushing cans and picking easy fights rather than testing yourself against WSOF guys or something.
But oh well time to go pad some records and manufacture some pretty looking record young prospects.
 
I still remember when Eddie Alvarez was the champ, got injured, and they created an interim fight between Chandler and Brooks. Only problem was that Bellator was mindfucked when Will Brooks won. Yet Bellator still wanted to go ahead with a trilogy fight of Alvarez/Chandler. It's not as bad now, but with such blatant favoritism along with a few other guys, how any prospect would sign with them is beyond me.
 
it looks like its going to work out for Darrion Caldwell but as a whole its not very young prospect friendly right now.
 
What if the young prospect is some moronic reality TV star or viral video star or something and wanted to fight a pro wrestler, midget or 55 yr old MMA vet?
 
AimedWithV said:
Really.

Why would any young prospect sign with Bellator right now?
They will either fight in the prelims, or will use as mismatches against some semi-top "supestars", like Thomson and Daley.
And if they dare to win a "superstar" fight by some crazy chance, Bellator will bury them in prelims like forever - like they did with Burley, who beat Jenkins.
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Huh?

What superstar did Burley beat? Jenkins, at 4-0?

He got 3 Bellator fights in a timely fashion. He was 2-0 when he came in, and for his last one he was the final match of the prelim card.
You're mad that a 4-0 LW with no name opponents wasn't quite main carding yet???


From last night's card - Linton Vassell was a 30 yr old with almost no name recognition when he came to Bellator. He fought on the opening match of his first card.

He won his first 2 matches and got promoted to the mains for his next 5.
7 total fights in under 2.5 years.
1 main event
3 top 20 opponents
Probably cracks the top 20 himself after winning last night on a card that will have plenty of viewers.

I think he's done pretty well for himself by coming up through Bellator.
 
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Yeah.. They are taking the ugly game the UFC played a little, and making it their entire business model. I'm not a Bellator fan right now. It's a ghetto azz stupid org (in my completely honest opinion) that has somehow managed to lower the bar further than the UFC. I now wonder if the worse ideas for the UFC actually came from Spike. "Spike," TV by idiots, for idiots.
 
UFC newbies have no intro or sales pitch to us at all. Debut on FP (unless you're blond and look kobra kai lol)dwell in obscurity unless you push your hyperbole all over social media to the point people are sick of reading about you and just wanna see your ass get beat.

Bellator makes fights like the opener from last night where you have an estbalished star in Pineda fed to a legit prospect same thing with Guillards fight they even had Tyson there to sweeten the pot. They build their stars appropriately instead of relegating fighters to fight in their own region still and become social media shills just for a shot on a fight night show no one will watch lol.

The Bellator hate on here is bizarre if you're a fight fan don't you want to watch entertaining fights more than no build up match ups between 2 randoms sold to us as prospects? Kevin Casey got called a prospect last time he fought in UFC if that happened in Bellator you guys would have hate hard ons we could see from space smarten your shit up lol.
 
WSOF is definitely a better place for legit prospects. Titan fc, is probably the best place for prospects. Get to fight other good prospects and you stay directly under the UFC's radar.
 
And Strikeforce was a terrible place for prospects too...

Cormier, Rockhold, Ronda, Gil... they all made terrible decisions. Coker doesn't know how to develop talent... right?
 
Cap_reD said:
Bellator makes fights like the opener from last night where you have an estbalished star in Pineda fed to a legit prospect same thing with Guillards fight they even had Tyson there to sweeten the pot. They build their stars appropriately instead of relegating fighters to fight in their own region still and become social media shills just for a shot on a fight night show no one will watch lol.
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lol at Campos being "built appropriately." He is 2-3 in his last five and was a late replacement and supposed to be an easy fight for Guillard. So was Girtz but he flipped the script on them.

I guess Thomson vs Villaseca was also them building prospects.
 
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bringitoncomeon said:
WSOF is definitely a better place for legit prospects. Titan fc, is probably the best place for prospects. Get to fight other good prospects and you stay directly under the UFC's radar.
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If your goal is just to get into the UFC then OK.

If you want to develop as a fighter, and a earn a living in the process than Bellator is a good fit.

Top 25 fighters at BW: WSOF has 1, Bellator has 4
Top 25 fighters at FW: WSOF has 0, Bellator has 4
Top 25 fighters at LW: WSOF has 1, Bellator has 4
Top 25 fighters at WW: WSOF has 3, Bellator has 2
Top 25 fighters at MW: WSOF has 0, Bellator has 2
Top 25 fighters at LHW: WSOF has 1, Bellator has 6
Top 25 fighters at HW: WSOF has 1, Bellator has 4 (if you count Minakov, 3 if you don't)

Top 25 fighters:

Bellator : 26 (most of them are home-grown)
WSOF: 7 (most came from UFC)
Titan: 1

And then factor in all the wrestling-prospects Bellator has signed lately.
 
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