Full Contact Fighter’s “The Daily Takedown”: Bellator Wins Even If Rampage vs. Ortiz Fight Fails
By Joshua Molina
UFC legend Tito Ortiz is in for a long night when he takes on Rampage Jackson at Bellator MMA’s first pay-per-view show November 2nd.
Jackson still has a lot of fight left in him and Ortiz is well past his prime. Still, the show is more about Bellator making a statement loud and clear to the UFC. If this pay-per-view does well, Bellator will likely branch out and stage more PPV shows. It doesn’t matter if Bellator’s shows lose money or draw only 100,000 buys. Every time Bellator holds a PPV show it cuts it little out of the UFC pay-per-view pie.
UFC President Dana White can squawk all he wants about how nobody cares about Ortiz, or that Bellator will lose money, but any true business person knows that you have to spend and lose money to make money. A business person who doesn’t take risks is a business person who never grows.
Even if Bellator fails miserably, and Jackson and Ortiz stink up the Long Beach Arena in a boring fight that ends in a decision, it would be better than not doing anything, or giving the fight away on free TV.
Strikeforce could have staged a PPV show with Fedor Emelianenko against anybody, but failed to do so. Instead, the UFC purchased the company, ran it into the ground, and eliminated its biggest competition at the time.
UFC is not going to buy Bellator because Viacom is not going to sell the company. Bellator is on the right track. It needs to continue to sign big-name talent and challenge UFC at its own game. MMA fans just want to watch knockouts. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the UFC or Bellator or the next MMA company to come along.