When bringing in a fighter to make someone look good fails

The UFC have got this wrong a few times, some good examples in this thread.

But nobody - NOBODY - does this quite like Bellator. Rich Chou may have stepped down as matchmaker, but the Coker-led principles of hiring 'elite' up and comers and feeding them 'gimmes' has backfired spectacularly at times! Here are the fighters Bellator tried - but failed - to Chou up and spit out:

LaRue Burley - Bellator didn't even hide their hurtsies when LaRue Burley smashed their undefeated wrecking machine Bubba Jenkins to ruin his undefeated record. They did give him 3 fights, Burley won them all, then got released. He actually got released - without explanation (https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2017...llator-departure-but-sees-new-start-at-lfa-11)

Corey Browning - Bellator tried their best to make 'Baby Slice' a thing, but Corey Browning inflicted the second huge upset of his 5 fight career. At least they didn't damage a legit prospect, I guess.

Trevor Gudde - Bellator finally managed to get Khonry Gracie on a winning streak, so they thought they were onto a 'Gudde' thing in 6'7 welterweight Trevor, who had just lost to an 0-3 can on the local scene in Massachusetts. To this day, Gudde is the only guy that other dude beat in a 1-6 run in pro MMA. But after beating someone who was 0-15, Bellator knew this was the ultimate test of the latest Gracie progeny. Except, umm, Gudde won, before going on to look absolutely terrible against Roman Faraldo in his next outing. Oh well, never mind Khonry.

Hannah Guy - Hannah Guy isn't a bad fighter, but she was brought in to lose to Valerie Loureda, who is supposedly the female Bruce Lee or something (whereas I can't find any promotional material on Guy for some reason?) - only this stupid piece of matchmaking never did look quite such a sure thing, and Guy went on to beat Loureda pretty easily. Never mind, at least they'll push Hannah to the moon after this - what's that, she's back on the regionals at Summit FC? Okay then...

Billy Goff - Oh look, another Gracie - Robson Gracie, Jr was 3-0 when they put him against 2-2 Billy Goff, a dude on a 2-fight losing streak. I mean, we're not even pretending here, are we? Not only is Gracie meant to win, he's facing a guy that's actively losing. Naturally, Goff wins, and Bellator let him go. Good job, guys!

Iony Razafiarison - Remember when Bellator was pretending every fighter at SBG Ireland was the next Conor and world class prospects? Step forward 5-0 Sinead Kavanagh, who they're going to put against a 2-1 French woman who they've actually just seen losing in their own promotion. Perfect! That's proper research. Except Iony shuts out Sinead, and derails her whole career. At least they kept Iony on.

But my all time favourite is a fight that didn't look like it was meant to be a gimme - Aaron Pico's Bellator debut, wonderkid, superstar, hasn't even fought yet, draws 8-2 Zach Freeman. This always looked like a risk, but with Bellator having paid Pico to train for three years prior to this fight, it's clear they assumed their starlet would win. He didn't. He got choked out in 24 seconds. In fairness to Bellator, they kept feeding Pico big record opponents most people had never heard of, but they've stepped it back recently after he dropped to 4-3. Still a world class prospect, but you just can't help but laugh that they disrespected Freeman and counted him out as a very live underdog - and that's not me saying that, Helwani interviewed Freeman and he admitted he felt a bit disrespected and overlooked by the kings of squash matches.
 
Lashley/Griggs and Le/Smith I are two examples from Strikeforce.
 
Mr Moist said:
Paulo Thiago vs Koscheck was very satisfying. But that was more of a underdog unknown winning, and not the ufc trying to set up a gift style matchup for someone.

For a bigger picture one, the UFC sending Chuck over to Pride and Dana wagering a large bet that Chuck would win the tournament. Don’t get me wrong, Chuck had some great wins, Mezger and Overeem ko if I remember correctly. But him taking an absolute beating against Rampage while young Dana is on commentary making excuses is gold. Then Rampage in his second UFC fight, knocking the long reigning champ Chuck out in the first round was icing on the cake.
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I remember Page saying that he was basically brought to the UFC so Chuck could avenge his Pride loss. After he knocked Chuck out he got the cold shoulder for a while.
 
Siver! said:
The UFC have got this wrong a few times, some good examples in this thread.

But nobody - NOBODY - does this quite like Bellator. Rich Chou may have stepped down as matchmaker, but the Coker-led principles of hiring 'elite' up and comers and feeding them 'gimmes' has backfired spectacularly at times! Here are the fighters Bellator tried - but failed - to Chou up and spit out:

LaRue Burley - Bellator didn't even hide their hurtsies when LaRue Burley smashed their undefeated wrecking machine Bubba Jenkins to ruin his undefeated record. They did give him 3 fights, Burley won them all, then got released. He actually got released - without explanation (https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2017...llator-departure-but-sees-new-start-at-lfa-11)

Corey Browning - Bellator tried their best to make 'Baby Slice' a thing, but Corey Browning inflicted the second huge upset of his 5 fight career. At least they didn't damage a legit prospect, I guess.

Trevor Gudde - Bellator finally managed to get Khonry Gracie on a winning streak, so they thought they were onto a 'Gudde' thing in 6'7 welterweight Trevor, who had just lost to an 0-3 can on the local scene in Massachusetts. To this day, Gudde is the only guy that other dude beat in a 1-6 run in pro MMA. But after beating someone who was 0-15, Bellator knew this was the ultimate test of the latest Gracie progeny. Except, umm, Gudde won, before going on to look absolutely terrible against Roman Faraldo in his next outing. Oh well, never mind Khonry.

Hannah Guy - Hannah Guy isn't a bad fighter, but she was brought in to lose to Valerie Loureda, who is supposedly the female Bruce Lee or something (whereas I can't find any promotional material on Guy for some reason?) - only this stupid piece of matchmaking never did look quite such a sure thing, and Guy went on to beat Loureda pretty easily. Never mind, at least they'll push Hannah to the moon after this - what's that, she's back on the regionals at Summit FC? Okay then...

Billy Goff - Oh look, another Gracie - Robson Gracie, Jr was 3-0 when they put him against 2-2 Billy Goff, a dude on a 2-fight losing streak. I mean, we're not even pretending here, are we? Not only is Gracie meant to win, he's facing a guy that's actively losing. Naturally, Goff wins, and Bellator let him go. Good job, guys!

Iony Razafiarison - Remember when Bellator was pretending every fighter at SBG Ireland was the next Conor and world class prospects? Step forward 5-0 Sinead Kavanagh, who they're going to put against a 2-1 French woman who they've actually just seen losing in their own promotion. Perfect! That's proper research. Except Iony shuts out Sinead, and derails her whole career. At least they kept Iony on.

But my all time favourite is a fight that didn't look like it was meant to be a gimme - Aaron Pico's Bellator debut, wonderkid, superstar, hasn't even fought yet, draws 8-2 Zach Freeman. This always looked like a risk, but with Bellator having paid Pico to train for three years prior to this fight, it's clear they assumed their starlet would win. He didn't. He got choked out in 24 seconds. In fairness to Bellator, they kept feeding Pico big record opponents most people had never heard of, but they've stepped it back recently after he dropped to 4-3. Still a world class prospect, but you just can't help but laugh that they disrespected Freeman and counted him out as a very live underdog - and that's not me saying that, Helwani interviewed Freeman and he admitted he felt a bit disrespected and overlooked by the kings of squash matches.
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Great post, I don’t watch Bellator that much but it really doesn’t surprise me they constantly screw up like this lol I remember Pico getting subbed in his debut that was hilarious
 
Pierced7681 said:
Great post, I don’t watch Bellator that much but it really doesn’t surprise me they constantly screw up like this lol I remember Pico getting subbed in his debut that was hilarious
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Thanks Pierced, I just think what Bellator aren't understanding is every promotion pushes their favourite fighters and gives them preferential treatment - there's no issue lining up winnable fights, but you're meant to mask it rather than line up someone that LOOKS like a complete dud.

Bellator actually have an advantage in that nobody is going to overanalyse their prelims - so if they're putting a good 3-0 fighter against a mediocre 2-0 fighter, or a good 3-0 fighter against another undefeated fighter with a specific weakness, nobody is going to care.

You can't get away with that in the UFC without being obvious, but Bellator sure 'can' (pun intended).

They just have no excuse for lining up fights that have absolutely no upside if there's an upset - and their treatment of fighters that won when they weren't meant to is shoddy at best. My best guess is Coker wants to be Vince McMahon, book a bunch of squash matches with a 100 % success rate, hype up only the favourites, and win every time. Sadly for Scott, this is sport, not make belief, therefore this silly strategy doesn't work. Conclusion: give your underdogs some love!! They might just become stars!
 
Forgot to add this one, Alessio Di Chirico was on a three fight losing streak and they booked him against surging Joaquin Buckley who was coming off two huge knockouts. Alessio highlight reel kos Buckley and then tells the ufc and the media off in the post fight press conference lmao
 
MMA Maine-iac said:
Machida was set up to lose to Soakajew. Choked him out instead.
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Was he really?
Sokoudjou had insane hype, but so did Machida...

The odds were near even, I might misremember some stuff because from what I recall, Machida was far from an easy fight that would make Soko look good.
But RYOTO was kind of a meme on Sherdog in particular, where he already had a large fanbase at the time, so my perspective may have been skewed.

I need to rewatch that one, the commentary during the walk-ins and all should help me remember the context better
 
Slatersan said:
Chiro Vera against Omalley was pretty sweet.

I dont know if this falls under bringing someone in but I don’t care because it was sweet.
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It doesnt but always fun to see the CuckBoy get his ass whooped
 
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