It’s a cliché—or maybe just stupidly obvious—to describe an evening of MMA fights as “weird,” but think about the moments that comprised Bellator 180 on Saturday night. Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione knocked each other to the mat at the same time, then the spry ex-NFL-er sprang up and badly laid out the Last Emperor, then Mitrione pretty-pleased the president for a visit to the White House. Aaron Pico, the combative sports wunderkind who Bellator signed in 2014 and has been subject to literally years of hype, was wobbled by an uppercut and choked out in less than 30 seconds in his MMA debut. And Michael Chandler spent half a round wobbling on his disgusting ankle, the doctor called the fight, Chandler stood up from his stool to whip up the crowd in Madison Square Garden, and someone pulled the stool out from underneath him. He sat back down, and right there, Bellator’s former lightweight champion and its most recognizable homegrown fighter fell on his ass.
Sometimes “weird” is the only word broad enough to cover all your bases. And Bellator CEO Scott Coker has a keen sense for the kind of weirdness that speaks to fight fans: a hard-to-place mix of high- and low-brow, of title fights and freak shows, of aging stars and hyped-up prospects. “We have something for everyone,” he said in the lead-up to Bellator 180, the promotion’s latest go at pay-per-view. But with Saturday now etched into history, the question is whether Bellator’s brand of weirdness was worth the extra cost.
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For a staple of Friday nights on Spike TV that’s drawn as many as 2.5 million viewers for its biggest fights, Bellator’s transition to pay-per-view represents a steep climb. The promotion went through with this once before in 2014, just before Coker took over: after a Chandler-Eddie Alvarez trilogy bout fell apart at the 11th hour, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal became the lackluster headliner for the all-around-forgettable Bellator 120. The card cleared 100,000 buys, according to Spike executives—good for a pay-per-view neophyte, but about the lowest figure registered by the modern incarnation of the UFC. (The UFC also experienced its own pay-TV dip in 2014.)
Bellator’s second stab at pay-per-view came at a discount—$49.99, a sawbuck less than the UFC’s usual high-definition price tag—and the organization loaded the card down with some of its biggest names under contract: Emelianenko, Mitrione, a title fight between UFC castoffs Ryan Bader and Phil Davis, another title fight between welterweight king Douglas Lima and Lorenz Larkin, the hype-heavy MMA debuts of Pico and female boxing champion Heather Hardy, and Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo behind the mic for the first Bellator show. For all the expense poured into the raw materials, however, the promo for Bellator 180 was lacking; by the time Wanderlei Silva gave Chael Sonnen a one-handed shove at the pre-fight presser, it became clear that their too-old beef wasn’t going to carry this card.
Many of Saturday’s outcomes were predictable, generally speaking: Sonnen landed double-legs and smothered Silva, Emelianenko took the concussion he would have taken from Mitrione in February, and Bader-Davis was as yawn-inducing as their first meeting in the UFC. Some fights were compelling, especially Hardy’s raw, bloody third-round TKO of Alice Yauger. But the oddities made the outcomes worth watching to the last detail. When Sonnen told the crowd that he choked out Tito Ortiz in under a minute—despite, in fact, losing to Ortiz in just over two minutes—the camera zooming in on Ortiz’s unintentionally hilarious face was a nice reminder of why it pays to watch right until the end.
It would be easy to talk about Bellator 180 as a catastrophe, to deconstruct every bland decision and odd finish, to talk yourself into thinking you didn’t get your money’s worth. But be honest: if you bought this pay-per-view after glimpsing the line-up, you were paid back every penny. The months-off fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor will likely retail for close to $100, and its biggest selling point is that you might see McGregor summon a unicorn into a boxing ring to trample Mayweather. Bellator 180 was entertainment that cost half as much, lasted quite a bit longer, and had flashes of athletic intrigue mixed in with the strange moments.
Heading into Saturday, Coker said he planned to make pay-per-view a Bellator fixture. Not every month—just when the time as right, and a time that will probably be heavily influenced by Saturday night’s buy rate. Whenever that time comes, weirdness will do more than garnish the vicious knockouts and blood-and-guts battles. Maybe it will be the main attraction.
