Bellator boss Scott Coker saw his team go unbeaten in their clash against Rizin FF on Saturday.
In a promotion vs. promotion event to close out 2022, Bellator fighters went 5-0, giving their American promotion a clean sweep at Saturday’s Rizin FF vs. Bellator event in Japan. The fights took place at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, near Tokyo. The main card airs on Showtime via tape delay at 8 p.m. ET.
These bouts included A.J. McKee defeating Rizin FF lightweight champion Roberto de Souza in the main event of the card, Patricio Freire topping Kleber Koike Erbst in the co-main, Kyoji Horiguchi outpointing Hiromasa Ougikubo, Juan Archuleta beating Soo Chul Kim, and to open up the main card Gadzhi Rabadanov defeating Koji Takeda.
Coker is happy with the result, but feels that perfect record could’ve been denied in the final fight of the card.
“I always said my wish was to go 5-0, and I’m happy that my guys won, but to me, it was very competitive out there,” Coker told reporters at the post-fight press conference. “That last fight, de Souza when he was fighting A.J., there were a couple of times I thought he might get tapped.
“It was very stressful to watch that last fight. It was very back and forth. I’m glad A.J. did what he had to do to win. But anything can happen in a fight in MMA. It was an entertaining night of fights.”
Although the record might indicate it was a one-sided affair, Coker thinks the Rizin FF fighters held their own. He also believes Bellator is the strongest its ever been talent wise and that a similar result could be expected against other MMA promotions.
“It just shows you how much the Rizin fighters to me have grown in the last five, six years,” Coker said. “I see a big growth spur. Keep in mind, when you talk about the Bellator athletes, and I’m not just saying this because you know it’s the company I run, but over the last six, seven years, this is the best roster we’ve ever had in the history of the company. …
“If you go all the way down the weight classes, we not just have fighters that can compete in the UFC, but we have fighters at three or four in each weight class that can compete against any company on the planet. We have a very strong, strong fighter base right now.”
MMA fighters vs Japanese cans. Never change, Japanese MMA. Never change
It was a decent event. Should have never been tape delayed
It went off as scheduled but most everyone was asleep.
It wasnt terrible, but every fight went to decision. Kind of on brand for Bellator at this point.
It was a pretty decent event. Wish Pitbull would have come with a more aggressive approach.
Stylistically the ring was awful for these fights.
Yeah he fought super conservative. Huge disappointment. I was hyping him up since 2011 or so, I always wanted to see him vs Aldo. .
Same age, from same country and both debuted in 2004. Same weight for most of their careers. Aldo debuted in WEC at 10-1 in 2008. Pitbull debuted in Bellator at 12-0 in 2010.
Basically one of them have held at the WEC/UFC/Bellator title since 2009, 14 years. Most of that time they both held gold.
Crazy the fans never got that fight.
100%. What’s crazy too is not many people even talked about it much. I thought if Bellator was going to create a global superstar it would be Pitbull, I know his English isn’t good, but based on skills and resume alone he should have been huge. Bellator just never pushed through to the mainstream audience. And when they did it was through established names like Tito, Kimbo, Shamrock, Royce, Rampage, Fedor, etc. I actually liked the old model of tournaments better. It moved fast and they would fight every other month. Ever since Scott Coker took over it feels bland, weird feeling. Granted Covid messed a lot of things up for a while, these last tournaments were way too spread out
When I saw how they could not make Pitbull even somewhat of a big deal I sort of lost all faith in their ability to get a fighter over with casuals in the mainstream.
I liked the old tournaments too and I think they have that bland feeling to you because they basically try to do the same thing as the UFC but with 10% or 20% of the talent pool so what is exciting about that? Once their top 5 have fought each other…there are only so many challenges for them outside and a lot of top 20 fighters they have then end up fighting guys ranked like #375 in the world that nobody knows.
Thats what Tokov just did, Tokov was like 30-3 and already deserved a shot but since they have limited talent for him to fight, in his last fight he fought someone ranked like 375 at fightmatrix that nobody knows and thats what they built his title shot off of so that type of stuff won’t help get his name out there either.
The Bellator season format was awesome. An event every week. Fast paced tournaments. Now I never even know when to tune in and I forget theres even a tournament.