Bellator responds to head to head UFC event
Bellator responds to the UFC annoucing it is holding UFN 50 on Friday, Sept. 5 at the Foxwoods Resort in Ledyard, CT, just ten miles from Bellator 123 in Uncasville.
From 2002 to 2005, the UFC put on four shows at the Mohegan Sun Arena – UFC 35, UFC 39, UFC 45, and UFC 55. Then the sport’s popularity exploded, and the UFC never returned.
Late last month, Bellator announced that it was holding an event at Mohegan on Friday, September 5. Just four days later, the UFC announced it would be holding UFC Fight Night 50 at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Conn, just ten miles away, on the same Friday night. This is particularly unusual as the UFC has traditionally run fights on Saturday nights.
Jack Encarnacao has the story for the Boston Herald.
The UFC has a track record of directly taking on competitors and forcing industry players to take sides. It’s not just ticket buyers who will have to choose between UFC and Bellator. Referees and cut men, for instance, have to decide which event to work, and the media will have to decide which to cover.
The tact isn’t unprecedented. In July 2010, the UFC presented a card headlined by middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva moving up to 205 pounds for the first time on a cable television event designed to pull attention away from a pay-per-view that night by the short-lived Affliction promotion, which lasted only one more event. The UFC did that when Spike TV was its television partner, and Spike pulled the same tactic several times when UFC left the network for Fox in 2011.
Spokesmen for the UFC and Fox said the Foxwoods booking has nothing to do with Bellator. They said the television date was penciled in a year ago for a fight night because Fox Sports 1 has college sports obligations the next night.
The UFC said it has been in talks about coming to Foxwoods for six months, though a Foxwoods spokeswoman told the Herald the deal to host the Sept. 5 card wasn’t closed until May 30.
Of course, the UFC could have selected virtually any arena in the country for its Sept. 5 event, let alone one just 10 miles away from Mohegan, which has hosted more Bellator cards than any other venue in the organization’s six-year history. The theatre at Foxwoods that the UFC is utilizing is roughly half the size of Mohegan’s 10,000-seat arena, a curious choice for an organization more than capable of outdrawing Bellator at the gate.
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney questioned in a statement why another MMA organization who rarely does Friday night events and who hasn’t held an event in Connecticut in a decade decided to do an event the same night, just a five minute drive from Mohegan at a small casino down the road.
The night will be a television ratings war, and Bellator’s Spike TV platform is more established and more highly-rated than Fox Sports 1.
Bellator 123 will be headlined by UFC veteran James The Sandman Irvin vs. Connecticut’s Brennan The Irish Bad Boy Ward , who is coming off a loss to Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko. Irvin is the fighter Silva faced when he moved up to light heavyweight on the Affliction injuring card in ’08. The event will also feature opening fights from Bellator’s season 11 middleweight tournament.
The UFC has not yet announced who is fighting on the UFN 50 card, but it is believe Joe Lauzon will appear.