Is This Org Better Than UFC?

DougieJones

You're The Man Now Dog Belt
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So I spend some time over the last month or so putting together a little list of combined Bellator, PFL, and other random non-UFC contracted fighters. I guess my thinking was 'what if PFL folded and Bellator got some REAL financial backing', so this roster is Bellator + PFL + some other top fighters/prospects. I tried to stay away from Rizin and ONE fighters, as in this scenario they would still be active. Would this roster come close to matching UFC in terms of eventual star power/top-level competition? All records are current as of last week.

BW
Leandro Higo (19-5)
Darrion Caldwell (15-3)
Sergio Pettis (19-5)
John Moraga (19-7)
Matheus Nicolau Pereira (15-2-1)
Magomed Bibulatov (15-2)
Yuta Sasaki (22-8-2)
Alfred Khashakyan (11-5)
Juan Archuleta (24-2)
Eduardo Dantas (21-7)
Nazareno Malegarie (29-5-1)
Ricky Bandejas (13-3)
Josh Hill (19-3)
Callum Ellenor (8-2)
James Gallagher (10-1)
Keith Lee (6-3)
Dominic Mazzotta (14-3)
Nikita Mikhailov (6-1)
Patrick Mix (13-0)
Erik Perez (19-7)
Raufeon Stots (13-1)
Manny Vazquez (12-3)
Joby Sanchez (13-5)
Vinicius Zani (11-6)
Ricky Palacios (11-2)
Jarred Brooks (16-2)
Joe Taimanglo (24-9-1)
Abdul-Rakhman Dudaev (24-5)
Grigory Popov (13-4)
Jin Soo Son (9-4)
Bryan Caraway (22-9)

FW
Alexandre Almeida (21-10)
Freddy Assuncao (10-2)
Alex Gilpin (14-4)
Andre Harrison (21-2-1)
Jeremy Kennedy (15-2)
Movlid Khaybulaev (14-0-1)
Lance Palmer (22-3)
Daniel Pineda (26-13-2)
Bubba Jenkins (14-4)
Luis Rafael Laurentino (34-3)
Steven Siler (32-20-1)
Adam Borics (14-1)
Derek Campos (20-10)
Pedro Carvalho (11-3)
Tywan Claxton (6-1)
Henry Corrales (17-5)
Gaston Bolanos (5-3)
Daniel Crawford (10-3)
Pat Curran (23-9)
Leandro Higo (19-5)
Georgi Karakhanyan (29-10-1)
John Macapa (23-5-2)
AJ McKee (16-0)
Aaron Pico (5-3)
Patricio Pitbull (30-4)
Brendon Loughnane (19-3)
Emmanuel Sanchez (19-4)
Daniel Straus (26-9)
Daniel Weichel (40-11)
Robert Whiteford (16-4)
Damian Frankiewicz (9-3)
Sam Sicilia (17-11)
Max Coga (22-6-1)
Alexandre Bezerra (22-7)
Bekbulat Magomedov (20-3)
Kyle Bochniak (8-5)
Brandon Davis (10-8)
Diego Brandao (25-15)

LW
Derek Anderson (16-3)
Rafa Garcia (11-0)
Soren Bak (13-1)
Terry Brazier (11-3)
Chris Bungard (15-6)
Akhmed Aliev (19-6)
Nate Andrews (16-3)
Ylies Djiroun (17-6)
Rashid Magomedov (23-5-1)
Islam Mamedov (18-1-1)
Michael Chandler (20-5)
Alfie Davis (13-3)
Saul Rogers (13-3)
Brandon Girtz (16-9)
Benson Henderson (28-8)
Humberto Bandenay (18-8)
Gavin Hughes (10-1)
Luka Jelcic (10-3)
Loik Radzhabov (13-2-1)
Troy Lamson (11-4)
Natan Schulte (20-3-1)
Carlao Silva (11-2)
Chris Wade (17-6)
Myles Jury (18-5)
Killys Mota (12-1)
Mandel Nallo (7-1)
Kane Mousah (12-3)
Gadzhi Rabadanov (14-3-1)
Adam Piccolotti (12-3)
Patricky Pitbull (23-9)
Brent Primus (10-1)
Ryan Scope (10-3)
Marcin Held (26-7)
Tim Wilde (12-4)
Goiti Yamauchi (25-4)
Oliver Aubin-Mercier (11-5)
Johnny Case (27-6-1)
Clay Collard (17-8)
Justin Jaynes (15-4)
Jacob Rosales (12-5)
Sidney Outlaw (14-4)
Will Brooks (20-5-1)
Norman Parke (28-6-1)
Robert Watley (12-3)
Tofiq Musayev (18-3)

WW
Yaroslav Amosov (23-0)
Ruben Crawford (16-4)
Kiefer Crosbie (8-1)
Paul Daley (42-17-2)
Joey Davis (7-0)
Oliver Enkamp (9-2)
Walter Gahadza (18-5)
Neiman Gracie (9-1)
Rick Story (21-10)
Jason Jackson (11-4)
Mike Jasper (13-6)
Kent Kauppinen (12-5)
Andrey Koreshkov (22-4)
Ray Cooper III (20-7-1)
Chris Curtis (22-8)
Handesson Ferriera (14-3-1)
Andre Fialho (10-3)
Glaico Franca (22-6)
John Howard (28-16-1)
Zane Kamaka (13-4)
Magomed Magomedkerimov (26-5)
Chidi Njokauni (18-7)
Lorenz Larkin (22-7)
Douglas Lima (32-7)
Lewis Long (17-6)
Rory MacDonald (21-6-1)
Michael Venom Page (17-1)
Ion Pascu (18-10)
Stefano Paterno (13-3-1)
Carlo Pedersoli Jr (11-3)
David Michaud (18-6)
Bojan Velickovic (16-10-2)
Joao Zeferino (24-9)
Giorgio Pietrini (16-5-1)
Mateusz Piskorz (14-6)
Ashley Reece (8-2)
Jesse Ronson (21-10)
Ed Ruth (8-2)
Logan Storley (11-0)
Erick Silva (20-11)
Leonardo Mafra Texiera (15-5)
Mark Lemminger (10-1)
Alex Lohore (19-5)
Albert Tumenov (22-4)

MW
CB Dollaway (17-10)
Brandon Halsey (12-5)
Alexander Shlemenko (59-13)
Gegard Mousasi (46-7-2)
Lyoto Machida (26-9)
Rafael Carvalho (16-4)
John Salter (17-4)
Costello Van Steenis (12-2)
Fabian Edwards (9-0)
Mike Shipman (13-3)
Chris Honeycutt (12-3)
Gamzat Khiramagomedov (8-1)
Andrew Kapel (15-6)
Kent Kauppinen (12-5)
Fabio Aguiar (17-1)
Johnny Eblen (6-0)
Will Fleury (7-2)
Pietro Penini (9-1-1)
Anatoly Tokov (29-2)
Hracho Darpinyan (17-9-2)
Vladimir Filipovic (10-3)
Austin Vanderford (9-0)
Grachik Bozinyan (10-4)
Justin Sumter (10-3)
Brett Cooper (27-15)
Abusupiyan Magomedov (23-4-1)
Anderson Goncalves (12-4)
Bruno Santos (18-4)
Elias Theodorou (17-3)
Scott Askham (19-4)

LHW
Bozigit Ataev (20-5)
Maxim Grishin (30-7-2)
Jordan Johnson (12-2-1)
Ryan Bader (27-5)
Karl Albrektsson (9-3)
Arunas Andriuskevicus (15-4)
Julius Anglickas (8-1)
Lee Chadwick (25-15-1)
Phil Davis (21-5)
Tyree Fortune (5-0)
Liam McGeary (13-4)
Karl Moore (9-2)
James Mulheron (11-4)
Vinny Magalhaes (19-12)
Ronny Markes (19-7)
Mikhail Mokhnatkin (11-5-2)
Viktor Nemkov (30-7-1)
Emiliano Sordi (22-8)
Dan Spohn (18-7)
Rashid Yusupov (12-3)
Vadim Nemkov (11-2)
Alessio Sakara (21-13)
Jordan Young (11-1)
Rakim Cleveland (19-13-1)
Melvin Manhoef (32-14-1)
Francimar Barroso (25-7-1)
Tomasz Narkun (17-3)
Tom Lawlor (10-7)
Jake Heun (15-9)
Smealinho Rama (11-5)
Leo Leite (10-2)
Goran Reljic (17-8)
Attila Vegh (33-9-2)
David Branch (22-7)
Fabio Cherant (4-1)
Linton Vassell (19-8)

HW
Javy Ayala (11-8)
Tyrell Fortune (8-1)
Davion Franklin (1-0)
Jake Hager (2-0)
Ali Isaev (9-0)
Mohammed Usman (6-1)
Justin Willis (8-2)
James Haskell (0-0)
Timothy Johnson (13-6)
Adam Keresh (4-0)
Sergei Kharitonov (30-8)
Cheick Kongo (30-10-2)
Jared Vanderaa (10-4)
Fedor (39-6)
Muhammed Dereese (8-2)
Jared Rosholt (20-8)
Kelvin Tiller (11-5)
Satoshi Ishii (23-11-1)
Denis Goltsov (25-6)
Valdrin Istrefi (13-4)
Josh Copeland (18-7)
Shawn Jordan (19-9)
Ruslan Magomedov (15-1)
Viktor Pesta (15-6)
Matt Mitrione (13-7)
Philip De Fries (18-6)
Luis Henrique Barbosa de Oliveira (12-6)
Chris Daukaus (8-3)
Valentin Moldavsky (9-1)
Mikhail Mokhnatkin (11-5-2)
Oscar Cota (9-2)
Junior Albini (14-6)
Daniel Spitz (6-3)
Mark Godbeer (13-5)
Vitaly Minakov (22-1)
Justin Frazier (11-3)
Azunna Anyanwu (15-6)
Anatoliy Malykhin (7-0)
Brett Martin (8-1)
Josh Parisian (8-3)
Ante Delija (17-3)
 
In order to generate star power and thus fan interest the fighters need to work with the originaztion to build their brand and develop a fanbase

Most of the fighters the fighters that go to Bellator and PFL went precisely because they don’t want to deal with the stuff that is needed to turn them into draws

This organization wouldn’t be able to compete

Hell Bellator is so bad at creating fan interest that it relies on Ex-UFC talent to stay afloat
 
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For BW add Rustam Kerimov (14-0), Magomed Magomedov (16-1), Jack Cartwright (8-0), Herbeth Sousa (15-1) and Timur Valiev (16-2).

FW add Mateusz Gamrot (15-0), Salahdine Parnasse (14-0), Damon Jackson (17-3), Mairon Santos (10-0), TJ Laramie (11-3), Alex Morgan (9-4)

LW - Ali Bagov (29-9), Abdul Aziz Abdulvakhabov (17-2), Eduard Vartanyan (19-4), Max Rohskopf (5-0), Yusup Raisov (16-1), Mason Jones (9-0), Alexander Sarnavskiy (37-7), Hacran Dias (25-6)

WW - Nikolay Aleksakhin (26-5), Roberto Soldic (17-3) Jesse Ronson (21-10)

MW - Dricus Du Plessis (14-2), KB Bhullar (8-0), Kyle Daukaus (9-0)

LHW - Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov (18-5), Alex Polizzi (6-0), Jamal Pogues (7-3)

HW - Mukhamed Vakhaev (8-4)
 
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In order to generate star power and thus fan interest the fighters need to work with the originaztion to build their brand and develop a fanbase

Most of the fighters the fighters that go to Bellator and PFL went precisely because they don’t want to deal with the stuff that is needed to turn them into draws

This organization wouldn’t be able to compete

Hell Bellator is so bad at creating fan interest that it relies on Ex-UFC talent to stay afloat

Pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Branding goes along ways beyond just star power. Very few fighters outside of the UFC in the last 10 years or so have been able to bring eyes to their respective org and help that orgs brand long term. Many more times than not they'd produce a pop in viewership for that one event and then back to business as usual for those orgs.

Beyond talent you need to have people in charge of the org building the product. All to often promoters rely on bring in the talent and the fans will watch, truth is that has proven not a very profitable way of doing business in MMA.
 
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PFL is not the third best org as far as talent go. ACA is the third.

UFC is still bigger than both of those combined based on the top 100 fighters in the rankings
 
If you were to divide the world of MMA into UFC and non-UFC, the UFC still wins. However, the non-UFC world cannot be ignored.
 
Bellator is all about the opposite of UFC

Scott Coker can't define talent, he believes in dad bods grand prix including Roy Nelson, Sergey Kharitonov, Fedor Emelianenko. Let's remember Bellator made Ken Shamrock vs Royce Gracie 2016 and Dada 5000.

It's obvious thar Bellator really do not care about real talents like Yaroslav Amosov and Adam Borics before he lost. So I just can not see Bellator really wants to build up talents

Let's not forget about strange matchmaking, someone who has 5 wins and 6 losses can sign with Bellator while someone who has 12-0 and is 22 years old from Europe they barely sign them

The last Dublin cars had a female bout as a main event due to injuries and I will remmeber one of the oppnent had like 3-2 on the record

Skip dad bods, Fedor team and Mike Kogan shitty nepotism deals to pleasure the Israel government and start sign talents!
 
In PFL it's all about Ali Abdel Aziz Dagestan fighters.
 
Bellator is all about the opposite of UFC

Scott Coker can't define talent, he believes in dad bods grand prix including Roy Nelson, Sergey Kharitonov, Fedor Emelianenko. Let's remember Bellator made Ken Shamrock vs Royce Gracie 2016 and Dada 5000.

It's obvious thar Bellator really do not care about real talents like Yaroslav Amosov and Adam Borics before he lost. So I just can not see Bellator really wants to build up talents

Let's not forget about strange matchmaking, someone who has 5 wins and 6 losses can sign with Bellator while someone who has 12-0 and is 22 years old from Europe they barely sign them

The last Dublin cars had a female bout as a main event due to injuries and I will remmeber one of the oppnent had like 3-2 on the record

Skip dad bods, Fedor team and Mike Kogan shitty nepotism deals to pleasure the Israel government and start sign talents!

In this hypothetical Coker would be way gone from Bellator. I think he needs to be booted from Bellator if the company ever really wants to grow.
 
There is some talent out side of the UFC, but the UFC is where all of MMA's lineal titles are. Until that changes they are always going to be the A league.
 
If you were to divide the world of MMA into UFC and non-UFC, the UFC still wins. However, the non-UFC world cannot be ignored.

I actually really disagree with this. If you got all the best non- UFC fighters into one promotion it would kick the shit out of UFC
 
I actually really disagree with this. If you got all the best non- UFC fighters into one promotion it would kick the shit out of UFC

Nah there's more top class fighters inside the UFC than outside. In terms of depth it'd maybe be comparable, but when you hit the elite in most divisions UFC probably have an average of about 12 of the top 15 fighters in the world.
 
Nah there's more top class fighters inside the UFC than outside. In terms of depth it'd maybe be comparable, but when you hit the elite in most divisions UFC probably have an average of about 12 of the top 15 fighters in the world.

I'm sure that's what most people thought when Strikeforce was absorbed too
 
I actually really disagree with this. If you got all the best non- UFC fighters into one promotion it would kick the shit out of UFC
HW: UFC wins by landslide
LHW: UFC wins by landslide
MW: Competitive but UFC wins
WW: Competitive but UFC wins
LW: Competitive but UFC wins
FW: Competitive but UFC wins
BW: Competitive but UFC wins
FLY: UFC loses.

Facts.
 
HW: UFC wins by landslide
LHW: UFC wins by landslide
MW: Competitive but UFC wins
WW: Competitive but UFC wins
LW: Competitive but UFC wins
FW: Competitive but UFC wins
BW: Competitive but UFC wins
FLY: UFC loses.

Facts.

As I said above, I'm sure that's what most people thought before Strikeforce was absorbed as well
 
As I said above, I'm sure that's what most people thought before Strikeforce was absorbed as well
What? Let's look at the incoming Strikeforce champions, and how they did in the UFC:

Melendez: Clowned in UFC
Diaz/Saffiedine: Clowned in UFC
Shields: In retrospect did surprisingly well taking splits against Woodley and Maia.
Rockhold: Most successful Strikeforce champ.
Hendo: Hardly a Strikeforce fighter
Overeem: Did well, still fell short of expectations in the UFC.

Ironically, the best performing Strikeforce fighter to come to the UFC was Masvidal. (not including rousey)
 
What? Let's look at the incoming Strikeforce champions, and how they did in the UFC:

Melendez: Clowned in UFC
Diaz: Clowned in UFC
Rockhold: Most successful Strikeforce champ.
Hendo: Hardly a Strikeforce fighter
Overeem: Did well, still disappointed.

Ironically, the best performing Strikeforce fighter to come to the UFC was Masvidal.

Why exclude the non-champs, doesn't fit your narrative? Daniel Cormier, Gegard Mousasi, Tim Kennedy, Lorenz Larkin, Ronaldo Souza, K.J. Noons, Josh Thomson, Masvidal, just to name some, all did well in UFC. All but one of those you listed were past-prime and still had very respectable careers.
 

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