Paypress testing

Tag: bellator

  • MMA weekend ratings: UFC down, Bellator up from yearly averages

    This past weekend saw televised MMA shows from both of the big 2 companies in North America.

    The higher profile show was UFC Fight Night 77 from Sao Paulo Brazil on FS 1 Saturday night, which averaged 757,000 for the six-fight main card and 609,000 viewers for the four-fight prelims show, which also aired on FS 1. The show was up against huge sports competition in the form of college football on CBS, ABC, FOX, and ESPN which did numbers varying from 1.5 million all the way up to 11 million — all airing directly against the UFC show. An episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Donald Trump, did that show’s highest ratings in three years and aired against the second half of this show.

    The show was down about 17.5% from the year to date average of 917,625 viewers on FS 1. The prelims show was actually up 4.4% from the year to date average of 583,083 viewers for previous Fight Night prelim shows on FS 1.

    The five most recent FS 1 Fight Nights prior to Saturday had averaged 821,000 viewers and the most recent prelims shows had averaged 525,800 viewers. This would seem to indicate that the hardcore fan base that will watch any fights is actually increasing but that casual fans weren’t terribly interested in this card.

    This was the lowest number for an FS 1 show since the 508,000 viewers on July 18th but that show aired in the afternoon from Scotland. The last time a prime time show did this low was the TUF 21 Finale on July 12th that did 691,000 viewers for a show headlined by Stephen Thompson vs Jake Ellenberger and the final matches of the TUF 21 show (which for the first time ever was not a tournament).

    An FS 1 show one year ago this weekend, Fight Night 56, headlined by Ovince St. Preux vs Shogun Rua, did 699,000 viewers with the prelims show (airing on FS 2) doing 176,000 viewers. Again, that seems to line up with the general trend of UFC viewership being up in 2015.

    Saturday’s show was headlined by Dan Henderson vs Vitor Belfort, who had fought once before on an FS 1 show also from Brazil and also on the same weekend (Nov 9, 2013). That show did 722,000 viewers, so this was up from that time with a similar level of undercard.

    *****

    The other show this past weekend was Bellator 145: With a Vengeance, which aired Friday night on Spike TV. This was the final tentpole event of the year for Bellator and did an audience of 814,000 viewers, headlined by featherweight champion Pitbull Friere vs Daniel Straus. Lightweight titleholder Will Brooks vs. Marcin Held and featured fights featuring Bobby Lashley and former lightweight champion Michael Chandler were also on the show.

    This number was slightly up from the most recent big special for Bellator, headlined by Tito Ortiz vs. light heavyweight champion Liam McGeary, a four-man light heavyweight tournament, and two Glory kickboxing fights. That September 19th event did 800,000 viewers. The average for the five Bellator tentpole events is now 1,061,400 viewers, so this show was about 23% below that average.

    Bellator has averaged 759,286 viewers per show in 2015, so this number was up 7% from that average. This is the first time that Bellator has built one of these shows around main event fighters who were essentially homegrown so in that sense it was more like a regular show. It was also in the traditional Friday night time slot while the three higher rated events took place on a Saturday.

    The Bellator per show average is up 8.1% from 2014, which averaged 702,227 viewers.

    Bellator’s first tentpole show featured Ortiz vs Stephan Bonnar in a heavily promoted grudge match. That show set a Bellator record of 1,241,000 viewers on Nov 15, 2014, which has since been broken by Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock earlier this year.

  • F4D 11/9: Filthy Tom on UFC and Bellator, WWE Title tournament, win WWE 2K16, more!

    Filthy Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Tom Lawlor is back today with a shocking amount of stuff to talk about, especially for this show! We’ve got the WWE Title Tournament, Tom’s own Filthy Invitational 2015 tourney for a copy of WWE 2K15, the Smackdown finish and whether it was the worst ever, previews of Retro Raw and Retro Nitro this week, some comedy regarding the RUMBLR app, Bellator and UFC notes for last weekend and this weekend, Shamrock vs. Gracie, RIZIN fights, fun moves Tom has successfully applied to people and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!

    Right click save

  • WOL 11/8: Weekend wrap-up, Seth Rollins, New Japan, UFC, Bellator, more!

    Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today for two full hours to talk all the news of the weekend — Seth Rollins, the Survivor Series tournament, Bellator and UFC results and upcoming big fights, New Japan Power Struggle and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!

    Right click save

  • WOR 11/6: Booking around Seth Rollins’ injury, every bad fight ever made in one day

    Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back today with a very long breaking news audio show on a bunch of different stories — every bad idea fight you can imagine being put together all at once for Bellator and Rizin, how Seth Rollins going down may lead to a breath of fresh air for the entire company with so many booking options and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!

    Right click save

  • Fedor to face pro wrestler Tsuyoshi Kosaka on New Year’s Eve

    In a night filled with trips back in time, Inside MMA reported tonight that Fedor Emelianenko’s opponent for the Rizin New Year’s Eve show would be Tsuyoshi Kosaka, a 45-year-old retired pro wrestler from Japan.  

    After the report aired, Jerry Millen, who works with Emelianenko, denied that Kosaka was the opponent.  Observer sources in Japan say that Emelianenko’s opponent has not been decided and there were several different people under consdieration, Kosaka being one of them.

    Kosaka who has a strong judo background, was one of the major stars with the RINGS promotion in the 90, where he had some classic pro wrestling matches, and also headlined a Tokyo Dome show for New Japan Pro Wrestling.

    He also competed as a regular in Pride, and went to the semifinals of an eight man UFC heavyweight title tournament after Randy Couture vacated the title, before losing a classic fight with Bas Rutten.

    Kosaka won a controversial match over Emelianenko on December 22, 2000, in RINGS, the first loss of Emelianenko’s career.  It was in a tournament, and ended in 17 seconds when Emelianenko was too badly cut to continue from an illegal elbow.  The match would have been ruled a no contest normally, but being part of a tournament, they declared Kosaka the winner since Emelianenko wouldn’t be allowed to continue in the tournament.  Kosaka then lost in the next round via decision to Randy Couture.

    It was one of the great “What if’s” in history, since, had Emelianenko not been cut and advanced, he and Couture would have faced in 2001. Fedor would eventually avenge the loss to Kosaka in a fight on April 3, 2005, in Pride, saw Emelianenko win via doctor’s stoppage at the end of the first round. Kosaka had been announced as coming out of retirement for the show last week.

    *****

    Dave and Bryan have a brand new Wrestling Observer Radio talking this story right now for subscribers along with the Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock 3 announcement and more!

  • Point/Counterpoint: Are there too many Bellator MMA shows?

    Photo: Sherdog.com

    Even with today’s online attack culture environment turning debate into a terrible, overproduced thing, there is still a place for two people to organically disagree on a topic and let the world decide who they think is right: ESPN First Take! (Just kidding.)

    Paul Fontaine and I found we disagreed on the topic of whether there are too many Bellator shows, so I suggested we do a Point/Counterpoint on it. Let us know what you think on Twitter who you agree with. 

    You can catch Paul’s coverage of Bellator Vengeance Friday night, and listen to a preview of the entire weekend with myself and MMA Fighting’s Shaheen Al-Shatti on the latest JNPO.

    Enjoy!

    *****

    Josh’s Take —

    On a recent JNPO with MMA Weekly’s Erik Fontanez, we talked about Bellator 144 and noted that other than Michael “Venom” Page, there wasn’t a ton on the show to get psyched about. Fans seemed to agree as the show drew just 555,000 viewers — the lowest numbers of any show of the Scott Coker era.

    In looking ahead, that number might get worse and the reason for that — wait for it — is too many shows! Granted, I understand that there may be contractual obligations to casinos left over by the Bjorn Rebney era, but the amount of B shows are hurting their ability to put on meaningful and fun five fight shows.

    Here’s what I’m talking about:

    From tonight’s Bellator 145 event through December 4, Bellator has three shows: one major “tentpole” show and two B shows. The St. Louis A show has a good TV lineup other than Justin Lawrence vs. Emmanuel Sanchez which doesn’t need to be on the main card.

    In two weeks, they return with a Oklahoma B show that only has three main card fights announced thus far with Melvin Manhoef vs. Hisaki Kato as a main event, followed by a Bubba Jenkins fight and a Ricky Rainey fight, all of which should be on the undercard of the St. Louis show. However, Manheof/Kato in place of Lawrence/Sanchez tonight would be great.

    Two weeks after that, the promotion returns to San Jose for another B show headlined by Josh Thomson against a guy who doesn’t even have a headshot on the Bellator website. Georgi Karakhanyan vs. Daniel Weichel is the only other main card fight announced and we’re now less than a month away from the show.

    Why do all these shows need to exist? Bellator should be focused on maximum impact anytime they hit the TV screen and instead, they are doing just what the UFC frequently does: fill airtime with a mid-level product that doesn’t leave us wanting more.

    Scott Coker is a smart guy and he’s got to know Bellator has to be better than this. I hope for his sake that Spike TV agrees and believes that with combat sports, less is truly more.

    *****

    Paul’s Take —

    After listening to JNPO (great show by the way, strongly recommended), I emailed Josh about this as I have a different opinion. In this case, I think that Bellator’s problems this year have actually been not enough shows.

    When Bellator started on Spike TV before the Scott Coker era, they would run weekly in “seasons”, using a tournament format. They took periodic breaks where they would run one show a month. During that time, they had a fairly steady fanbase that would generally fluctuate between 600,000 and 800,000 viewers. I feel that the reason for this is that when they were running weekly, there is a segment of the audience that knew that if they wanted to watch MMA, they could tune into Spike TV and Bellator would be on.

    MMA, and especially pro wrestling fans, are creatures of habit. Having a show every week on the same station in the same time slot is generally going to keep a fairly consistent audience. If the shows are good, the audience will trend upward. But when they’re running an erratic schedule, sometimes on Saturdays, sometimes taking a month off, you get what you’ve gotten this year. Over the next little while, and actually dating back to the last Bellator show, they are running bi-weekly from mid-October until early December.

    Friday’s “A” show is fairly stacked by Bellator standards. Yes, the Justin Lawrence-Emmanuel Sanchez fight would be better served on the prelims, but Bellator has an excuse here as Pat Curran was originally scheduled to fight former UFC fighter Lawrence. Sanchez stepped up as a late replacement and this should be a fun fight.

    The next “B” show is now finalized, and looks not so bad. Melvin Manhoef and Houston Alexander are the most familiar names on the show and it also features prospects Bubba Jenkins and Chidi Njokuani. I think that the stronger than usual B show lineup, combined with a more regular schedule, will result in a better viewership number for Bellator. The last show in December will feature Josh Thomson and former WSOF Featherweight champion Georgi Karakhanyan and Josh Koscheck is rumoured to be making his promotional debut on that show as well, so it should do fairly well.

    Time will tell, but I think that Bellator might feel similar to the way I do as plans for next year are for a more regular schedule with an increase in the number of both A and B shows and also running a wider variety of markets and venues.

  • Kurt Angle broadcasting at tonight’s Bellator MMA show

    Former WWE & TNA Champion Kurt Angle, who was at Bellator’s FanFest Thursday as part of his new arrangement with the promotion, was announced Friday morning as being part of the broadcast crew for tonight’s “tentpole” show on Spike TV.

    Lead announcer Sean Grande tweeted that there would be “a very special guest tonight” in the booth, adding #ItsTrueItsDamnTrue and #MilkOManiaIsRunningWild.

    Editor’s Note: If you’re reading this post-show, Angle did some color commentating with Grande and Jimmy Smith during the Bobby Lashley/James Thompson fight with a quick hit interview before. They asked him a few questions with one of them being if he was going to fight. He definitely didn’t say no, but there was no immediate, “Yes, I’m planning on it.” Post-fight, Lashley came over and hugged Angle at cageside.

    *****

    The main events have an interesting twist as police were called earlier this week due to an altercation between featherweight champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire and lightweight champion Will Brooks at the fighters’ hotel. However, the two are not fighting each other.  Brooks claimed he was sucker-punched while on the phone and attacked by Freire and his brother, Patricky, also an MMA fighter with Bellator. Freire claimed he decked Brooks. Police made no arrests and filed no charges.  The two were moved to separate hotels.

    Brooks first missed weight yesterday by .8 of a pound, for his title fight with Marcin Held. He was able to make weight within two hours.

    Tonight’s main card lineup:

    • Justin Lawrence (146) vs. Emmanuel Sanchez (145.6)
    • Bobby Lashley (239.5) vs. James Thompson (264)
    • Michael Chandler (155.75) vs. Dave Rickels (155.75)
    • Will Brooks (154.8) vs. Marcin Held (154.8) for the lightweight title
    • Patricio Pitbull Freire (144.4) vs. Daniel Straus (144.4) for the featherweight title

    More details on the history of Lashley vs. Thompson are available in this week’s edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

  • Josh Nason’s Punch-Out: MMA Fighting’s Shaheen Al-Shatti previews UFC & Bellator’s weekend events

    Rejoice, MMA fans! With Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson, Will Brooks, and more burning up our TV screens this weekend, #JNPO 19 needed a full hour plus to contain all of that and some of the news of the week. Helping host Josh Nason navigate the fightin’ seas this week is MMA Fighting rising star Shaheen Al-Shatti!

    Here’s a look at what Josh and Shaheen delved into:

    – How Shaheen found his way to MMA Fighting and his abrupt first interaction with Luke Thomas

    – How the Real Pro Wrestling feature came together

    – Whether the guys want to see Georges St. Pierre come back and if so, who against

    – A look at Bellator’s Friday night main card

    – Why Josh likes Will Brooks despite him hating on pro wrestling

    – Josh lamenting about the amount of Bellator shows and the “B” show Bjorn Rebney feel

    – A look at UFC’s Saturday night card in Brazil

    – Shaheen’s dark horse pick for the fight he’s most excited for

    – Some Clay Guida conversation and a look back at the infamous Revel fight against Gray Maynard

    – What Josh and Shaheen want Vitor Belfort to just go away

    – Josh’s Opening Round chiding the Internet masses…and more!

    Observer subscribers can stream or download via the link below:

    Right click save

  • Bellator starts early as “Pitbull” brothers fight Will Brooks in a hotel

    Friday’s Bellator show started a couple of days early apparently as Bellator fighter and current Lightweight champion Will Brooks, was beaten up in a hotel by fellow Bellator fighters, Patricky and Patricio Freire, also known as the “Pitbull” brothers.  

    According to Will Brooks, “I was looking out this glass window, and out of nowhere, Patricky jumps on my shoulder, and he’s like in my face, mumbling something,” Brooks told MMAjunkie. “So first reaction, I’m trying to create separation. He pushed me, and then his brother jumped on my shoulder and started punching me all while I’m trying to defend myself, and all of their people are holding me back while these guys are punching me. And I’m defenseless by myself with them and all their translators. It’s all on video.”  The video has not come out and it is unclear who filmed it, but Bellator and Missouri athletic commission officials are looking into the incident.  Brooks took a photo of his bloody shirt after the incident and posted it on twitter, which has since been deleted.  

    At this time it is unclear what prompted the scuffle, but according to Brooks, he was on the phone with his mother at the time.  “These guys jumped me like cowards,” Brooks told MMAjunkie shortly after the alleged incident. “These guys are going to get what they deserve. They’re cowards.”  The Freire brothers and Brooks have had an ongoing feud for sometime, but nothing involving a phyiscal confrontation.  Brooks said that he suffered a bloody nose, but otherwise is fine.  “They had a real opportunity to beat my ass, and they still couldn’t do anything,” Brooks said. “But I’m just pissed off. I’ve never jumped anybody or needed anyone to fight my battles. Only cowards pick up weapons or use other people to fight their battles against one person.”

    Brooks is still scheduled to face Marcin Held on Friday November 6th for his Brooks’ Lightweigtht title and Patricio Freire, who is the Bellator featherweight champion is scheduled to fight Daneil Staus in the main event this Friday night night.

    Check out F4WOnline.com’s preview of this Friday’s Bellator Vengeance

  • Wrestling Observer Live 10/28: Tons of news on Kurt Angle, Young Bucks, RIZIN Fighting and more!

    Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today with tons of news including a TNA star potentially facing the real deal in an MMA fight, and no, we’re not talking Kurt Angle but we will discuss his signing with Bellator, Raw ratings, Young Bucks to ROH and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!

    Right click save