Bellator kickboxing brand

W... T... F...
bellator loses in the ratings to powernation (morning spike show)
and now you want to start a kickboxing org? @__@ W... T... F...​
 
Is this going to be a few event a year thing or multiple times a year? Even if it is just a side project the reasources would be better at Bellator MMA.
 
More free entertaining combat sports man y'all r some whiney little birches
 
BeardotheWeirdo said:
Coker cut his teeth in kickboxing. Strikeforce was built around Cung Le. MVP is one of Bellators most popular fighters on here.
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This's true. Coker was working in K-1 at K-1's peak before he started Strikeforce. People have been critical of Bellator's direction and quality since Coker took over, but if there's anyone who can make kickboxing work in America, it's Coker.
The only thing kickboxing's been missing in America has been a good, marketable fighter and a strong promotion to back him (those're the only two ingredients you need to make a sport or an organization popular in a region.) Coker's got half that down, and there's probably some promising young kickboxer in San Jose that they could start pushing.
 
I have to say it's kind of lame that Coker thinks the things he needs for Bellator Kickboxing to succeed are: American fighters, people that speak English, MMA fighters for the cross over appeal and pretty female athletes. Despite some of their recent controversies in scoring and decisions, Glory kickboxing is so much more legit. I'm an American combat sports fan and I don't need to see my fellow countrymen to get interested, I just want to see the best kickboxers, which Glory has a lot of.
 
[...] Though the action will go down on April 16 inside the Pala Alpitour in Torino, Italy, Spike won’t televise it until Friday, April 22 at 11 p.m. ET/PT, immediately following the live broadcast of Bellator 153 “Koreshkov vs. Henderson.”

Bellator Kickboxing “Torino” is slated to kick off the festivities of Bellator 152 “Pitbull vs. Campos” at the same venue. Bellator 152 will be aired on Spike in the U.S., though on a tape delay at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
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http://www.sherdog.com/blog/Main-Ca...-Kickboxing-Torino-102171#HY0m0iMs5MPji9EL.99

That, uhm, kinda sucks.
 
BeardotheWeirdo said:
Coker cut his teeth in kickboxing. Strikeforce was built around Cung Le. MVP is one of Bellators most popular fighters on here.

They're going to go after the flashy guys and the brawlers.

Kharitonov, Manhoef, Daley, MVP, Josh Thompson, probably Raymond Daniels and Jaideep, Rampage did well in K-1... if they can borrow Petrosyian from Oktagon (who they're co-promoting with in April) and sign a few guys than they can put together a good card.

Please no more Keri Melendez though.
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it provides some interesting matchups kinda like when Dream did Hari vs mousasi and hari got knocked out to the shock of everyone. Benson said he would try some kickboxing so I can see them doing a lot of mma vs kickboxer fights. the crossover appeal is what makes this more interesting to me than glory. I'd like them to sign some legit kickboxers too.
 
eseseses681 said:
This's true. Coker was working in K-1 at K-1's peak before he started Strikeforce. People have been critical of Bellator's direction and quality since Coker took over, but if there's anyone who can make kickboxing work in America, it's Coker.
The only thing kickboxing's been missing in America has been a good, marketable fighter and a strong promotion to back him (those're the only two ingredients you need to make a sport or an organization popular in a region.) Coker's got half that down, and there's probably some promising young kickboxer in San Jose that they could start pushing.
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Why is Coker the "guy"? Seriously what has he really done in kickboxing that has been successful on a national or world wide scale?

Yes, he got his start with kickboxing. But truth be told he never really got it going very well at all. If my memory is correct he more or less started Strikeforce in like the mid 80's as kickboxing. I know at one point he was like a director or something of that effect with ISKA(found a little success). With some of that it lead him having some form of friendship with Ishii and K-1 way back in the day. I guess I more or less look at his involvement with K-1's success similar to trying to say Jerry Millen is some MMA master mind because of some of his involvement in the MMA wolrd. But Coker's own led Strikeforce really accomplish almost zero as a kickboxing org. and ISKA had very little success but more than Strikefoce did on the kickboxing front.

Then you have orgs like It's Showtime that got involved with the new K-1 and then Glory's buy out of it all in the end and none of it worked out at all. Most of this was headed by the biggest players ever in the sport of kickboxing and had access to the biggest names ever in kickboxing. All seem to have a lot more going for them than Coker.

I'm not saying Coker is a moron and is going to fail instantly with it. But the MMA side of Bellator needs a lot of work and MMA is more or less a niche sport on the Bellator level and Kickboxing is even more niche in most parts of the world. Seems like he is really spreading himself out with this stuff. Hey, I'll take my free combat sports but in the world of TV there isn't much forgiveness for poor choices and to tackle a sport that more less has been proven to be just as tough as MMA to become successful in seems like career suicide.


P.S.: From the outside looking in it seems like Coker is kind of like monkey see, monkey do. He grew up in the sport when Japan melted together kickboxing, prowrestling, and MMA and turned it into a spectacle. The problem with that is Japan is one of the hardest entertainment/commercial spaces in the world to find success in. What Japanese like in there entertainment rarely crosses over to the rest of the world, it's more or less there own culture. What happen in the Japanese combat world in the late 80's through 2006ish was just the planets aligning perfectly. Since then no one has found much success with combat sports in Japan. So to try and take that model and sell it to the rest of the world comes across as kind of a bad ideal.
 
mime said:
it provides some interesting matchups kinda like when Dream did Hari vs mousasi and hari got knocked out to the shock of everyone.
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This never happened. Hari lost to Overeem and Mousasi fought and beat Kyotaro and Musashi.
 
I know that Coker started off in kickboxing but I think it's best to get your core business working before you branch out.
 
Hagelslag2 said:
This never happened. Hari lost to Overeem and Mousasi fought and beat Kyotaro and Musashi.
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you're right i just got a bad memory. i just remember being shocked at both fights. I like the mixing and matching between kickboxers and mma fighters, offer some sort of intrigue
 
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