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NHB7

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Alright, a lot of people complained that Kimbo/Dada and Shamrock/Royce was a lot of terrible things:

Pointless
Low class
Dumb
Uninteresting
Etc

But they can't say it wasn't extremely popular. No matter how bad you thought it was, lots and lots of people wanted to see it. Why? How does Bellator keep pulling in these viewers?

Even there best homegrown prospects (Joe Warren, pitbull, curran, Rickles, Schlemenko) don't even come close to that many views. So we can't say fans don't like masters fights and Kimbo fights...why though?

How does Bellator keep this going?
 
I enjoyed the card all the way through. I was just disappointed by a couple things...

  • Dada becoming deathly ill
  • Shamrock still having some kind of controversy at the end of his fight with Royce. We never get closure with this guy.
 
There are just so many people out there who are oblivious to what MMA is, they don't know the difference between Bellator or UFC, it's all the same to a casual onlooker. They don't know what a triangle choke is, they never heard of PRIDE, they don't care or know who is in the top ten. People who eat sleep and breathe their every waking breath on twitter and sherdog live in their own little bubble, this guy is too old, that guy sucks, Ronda can't box, blue collar folks that grind all day swinging sledge hammers don't give a shit about that, they only give a shit about interesting characters and stories. That is why Ronda and Kimbo draw huge money and guys like Breen and Meltzer don't get it, Scott Coker gets it.
 
Herchel Walker Vs Kimbo Slice
Kurt Angle Vs Royce Gracie

Put those two fights on a card and a shit load of people would watch again.
 
Casuals love freakshows

If you put a donkey vs some Cardashian to fight, I bet my ass that will made better ratings than Kimbo vs Dada

BUT if you are the CEO/President of Bellator and you have some respect for MMA, you shouldn't make it
 
Lucifer Alpha said:
Fans of what? You think people tuning in to Kimbo fights are MMA fans?
Click to expand...

The entire main card averaged almost 2 million people. They didn't just tune in for the Kimbo fight.

At the very least, those fans watching put money into Bellators pocket, which can be spent on fighters like Bendo.

And it wasn't just casual fans that tuned in for Bellator 149. There were a ton of people in the discussion thread also
 
Lucifer Alpha said:
Fans of what? You think people tuning in to Kimbo fights are MMA fans?
Click to expand...
Pretty much everyone on this board watched it or searched for highlights the next day.

So, yeah if Coker wants to keep the 2% of hardcore fans of MMA that didn't watch, and I'd guess that hardcore fans make up no more than 30% viewership, than he should change his model. But if instead he wants to keep getting 2 million plus viewers, he should figure out what he did right and keep doing that.
 
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NHB7 said:
Pretty much everyone on this board watched it or searched for highlights the next day.

So, yeah if Coker wants to keep the 2% of hardcore fans of MMA that didn't watch, and I'd guess that hardcore fans make up no more than 30% viewership, than he should change his model. But if instead he wants to keep getting 2 million plus viewers, he should figure out what he did right and keep doing that.
Click to expand...
Five million people watched Kimbo in EliteXC. Why didn't anyone applaud Gary Shaw?

kimbo-slice-with-gary-shaw.jpg
 
Lucifer Alpha said:
Five million people watched Kimbo in EliteXC. Why didn't anyone applaud Gary Shaw?

kimbo-slice-with-gary-shaw.jpg
Click to expand...
I wonder why no one brings up that Kimbo is barely getting a fraction of what he used to get. Ratings wise
 
shinobimusashi said:
Because Coker isn't trying to fool us into believing that Kimbo is the baddest man on the planet.
Click to expand...
He's benefiting from that hype. Coker should thank Gary for that. Lord knows he can't talk up a fighter. Coker is just picking up Gary Shaw's scraps and everyone praises him as some genius promoter lol. Shaw is the genius. He took a street fighter from Youtube and turned him into an MMA superstar.
 
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SidJustice said:
I wonder why no one brings up that Kimbo is barely getting a fraction of what he used to get. Ratings wise
Click to expand...

Well that's kind of the question of the thread. Coker found something that the viewers love. How does he maintain it? Shaw couldn't.

Also, all the bad stuff people on here said about the fight would have had one believing it was a colossal failure, but in fact it proved to be there best ratings to date. So why was it so successful if it was sooooo terrible? And if that is what terrible is, should Coker keep putting on terrible cards if he wants Bellator to be successful?
 
qw3rty said:
Casuals love freakshows

If you put a donkey vs some Cardashian to fight, I bet my ass that will made better ratings than Kimbo vs Dada

BUT if you are the CEO/President of Bellator and you have some respect for MMA, you shouldn't make it
Click to expand...

What if your a CEO that wants to get huge ratings and make money?
 
NHB7 said:
Well that's kind of the question of the thread. Coker found something that the viewers love. How does he maintain it? Shaw couldn't.

Also, all the bad stuff people on here said about the fight would have had one believing it was a colossal failure, but in fact it proved to be there best ratings to date. So why was it so successful if it was sooooo terrible? And if that is what terrible is, should Coker keep putting on terrible cards if he wants Bellator to be successful?
Click to expand...

Of course he should keep doing it; although I think twice a year is probably the sweet spot in terms of doing it and bumping that up to 3 times if a bunch of the champs get injured. The question is how long will the UFC let this niche market continue before they decide to do the same.
 
Meathead Jock said:
Of course he should keep doing it; although I think twice a year is probably the sweet spot in terms of doing it and bumping that up to 3 times if a bunch of the champs get injured. The question is how long will the UFC let this niche market continue before they decide to do the same.
Click to expand...

I think that's a clever plan. If every cards a Freakshow, it loses its novelty and becomes like celebrity boxing or something. Twice a year to boost ratings and bring casuals back is smart though.
 
Lucifer Alpha said:
He's benefiting from that hype. Coker should thank Gary for that. Lord knows he can't talk up a fighter. Coker is just picking up Gary Shaw's scraps and everyone praises him as some genius promoter lol. Shaw is the genius. He took a street fighter from Youtube and turned him into an MMA superstar.
Click to expand...

Hard to argue with that. I'll raise you women's MMA, Shaw was the one that build the model for that to succeed the way it did. I was a fan of Elite XC.

However I think you got to give Coker some credit. Dada also deserves a little credit for pulling this big number, I think he was a bigger draw here than people realize because of the Dawg Fight documentary, that made him a name. The whole documentary build up Dada vs Kimbo. Coker doing Dada vs Kimbo was genius, if it would have been on free CBS or something it probably would have shattered the Elite XC record. Not as many people have Spike today that did 5-10 years ago.
 
shinobimusashi said:
Hard to argue with that. I'll raise you women's MMA, Shaw was the one that build the model for that to succeed the way it did. I was a fan of Elite XC.

However I think you got to give Coker some credit. Dada also deserves a little credit for pulling this big number, I think he was a bigger draw here than people realize because of the Dawg Fight documentary, that made him a name. Coker doing Dada vs Kimbo was genius, if it would have been on free CBS or something it probably would have shattered the Elite XC record. Not as many people have Spike today that did 5-10 years ago.
Click to expand...
I never thought I'd consider Shaw a great promoter, but Worldwide has made me see the light.
 
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