UFC® goes head-to-head with Bellator, puts on a same night same city event
source | BostonHarold.com
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.