World Series of Fighting vs. Bellator: The Challenge
You’re probably familiar with the image above. With the best use of an Excel spreadsheet ever, the World Series of Fighting vice president, Ali Abdel-Aziz, stopped by The MMA Hour earlier this month and issued a cross-promotional challenge to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. Why? For what reason? Well apparently for the right to be known as the real “number two” MMA promotion in the world.
No need to click, here are the prospective match-ups.
Tyrone Spong vs. Quinton Jackson “SUPERFIGHT”
Anthony Johnson vs. Attila Vegh
Andrei Arlovski vs. Vitaly Minakov
Marlon Moraes vs. Eduardo Dantas
Yushin Okami vs. Alexander Shlemenko
Rousimar Palhares vs. Douglas Lima
Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Chandler
Georgi Karakhanyan vs. Daniel Straus
Jon Fitch vs. Rick Hawn
David Branch vs. Brett Cooper
This looks impressive, right? From Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Chandler to a Spong-Jackson brawl, I’m totally into the idea of WSOF and Bellator joining hands, Whoville style, to produce such a spirited card. All sane MMA fans would be into this.
Well, regardless of any of our fan whims, Bellator didn’t think too much of it. Actually, none at all. It’s a P.R. stunt right out of their own playbook (remember Bellator-Strikeforce banter on a potential Alvarez-Melendez fight) and they didn’t even respond. At most Bjorn Rebney told the Sherdog Radio Network that his “days are full to the brim with 18 or 19 hours of legitimate work” and that he’s too busy for “small shows and amateur events.” Ouch, somebody needs to tie a rope around his big toe because like Sandra Bullock, he’s about to float into outer space. (Note: I have not seen that movie.)
So who’s right? Is WSoF small potatoes or is Bellator’s Bjorn Rebney a “CANDYASS” as Abdel-Aziz eloquently put it?
To be honest, I haven’t yet dwelled much on the quality of WSOF until Abdel-Aziz ensnared me with his unusual challenge. The manner in which he did it was just so savvy. No need for frills when he has “names” in the business. The star-power of his starting line-up alone instantly sold most fans, and the ones that weren’t already admirers got a cheeky reminder of Alvarez’s ugly contract dispute with the little “hostage” gag.
It’s funny. It’s just a spreadsheet. One of those business things used for something called “the books” and it ended up spurring on all this dialogue. Instead of the sometimes taxing armchair philosophizing that happens when discussing hypothetical match-ups, Abdel-Aziz found a way to make it fun. Countering Rebney’s silence with bluster was a great move on his part.
There’s one problem though. The best of WSOF’s guys versus the best of Bellator’s guys may have been a great sell, but in all fairness, it doesn’t do either organization any justice in terms of their respective quality.
So to more or less tackle such an arbitrary(yet still fun) question like “who’s better,” I decided to use a little bit of WSOF’s own medicine. Feeling inspired, I made another MMA card using the best fighters still available from each promotion…
Depth Chart.
Once again, I’m proud enough to put this on my fridge, but there’s still no need to click. Here’s the best of the rest cross-promotional card. I included some other options for good measure.
Nick Newell vs. David Rickels
Steve Carl vs. Andrey Koreshkov
Mike Kyle vs. Emanuel Newton
Lance Palmer vs. Patricio Freire
Josh Burkman vs. War Machine
Teddy Holder vs. “King Mo” Luwal
Freddy Assuncao vs. Pat Curran
Cody Bollinger vs. Joe Warren
Mike Russow vs. Cheick Kongo
Jessie Taylor vs. Doug Marshall
Chris Horodecki vs. Mike Richman
Dave Huckaba vs. Eric Prindle
As you can see in this alternate version, WSOF starts out strong with star lightweight prospect Nick Newell and then quickly tapers into enticing, but lesser known fighters like Lance Palmer and Teddy Holder. It’s this top-heaviness to WSOF’s roster that feels more like it’s current reality. It’s still only a promotion that’s eight events old and it feels that way.
I mean, two of their big name UFC acquisitions, Yushin Okami and Rousimar Palhares, haven’t even fought for them yet and won’t officially be baptized until March 29th. That’s when Palhares will fight welterweight champion Steve Carl while Okami’s opponent hasn’t been announced.
It’s also fair to point out that in this roster vs. roster scenario, several of the WSOF guys have already tried their hand in Bellator. The most egregious snub of the WSOF first-team actually being Steve Carl. He was most likely left off because he already has a loss to the opposition’s now title challenger, Douglas Lima. Georgi Karakhanyan and several other WSOF’ers are sort of in the same boat as Bellator veterans. I don’t take issue with that as a fan, but it’s still relevant to the initial challenge.
That’s not to say anyone is bad. On the contrary, World Series of Fighting is awesome. If you’re not watching the lightweight champ, Justin Gaethje, then you are truly missing out. He’s been an unstoppable bus and his opponents are as helpless as a Sandra Bullock at the wheel. (Two Bullock references. Drinks are on YOU tonight!) It’s mesmerizing stuff to watch. Similarly, Spong, Johnson, Arlovski, Moraes, Karakhanyan, Newell, Carl and Burkman are all involved in entertaining MMA bouts under their banner. It needs to be preached far and wide.
On the other hand, do I really need to explain the merits of Bellator’s role players in this? Has anyone not heard of the damn good lightweight, Dave “Caveman” Rickels, who also happens to walk out to the cage with a large animatronic dinosaur? Has anyone not seen Emanuel Newton‘s highlight spinning backfist to put King Mo to sleep? What about War Machine? There’s not an MMA fan out there that can claim ignorance to his bout of love with reknown porn star Christy Mack.
Most importantly, if I weren’t using slight favoritism towards WSOF in some respects, Patricio Freire would absolutely be in the main event after his vicious 4-0 2013 (he’d also have a Bellator Featherweight title-shot right now). I just felt like I needed to give it to the best fighter on the WSOF side. Besides, Nick Newell against “Caveman” Rickels would be a fun fight.
So of course, there are many reasons why Bellator maybe deserves a little more prestige and credit than the great offerings that WSOF has had so far. They’re the real number two MMA promotion the world right now. Bjorn Rebney would immediately point out “the numbers” as they’ve had relative ratings success on Spike TV. MMAPayout.com has them averaging around 671k viewers per live event last year. I would just simply say Bellator has been really good lately.
Either way, compliments to the WSOF promoter here, because now I’m paying close attention. I studied up and was rewarded with finding out that their product is great. No more “What happened to Sefo?” jokes and no longer do I feel like they’re actually small fries. There’s some exciting MMA happening over there, and I’m glad they demanded it to be seen.