Sherdog’s Top 10: Bellator MMA Moments

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8. The Madness of the Bellator Pay-Per-View

If at first you do not succeed, try again. Bellator’s initial effort on pay-per-view -- Bellator 106 in November 2013 -- was supposed to feature a bout between recognizable veterans Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson, along with rematches between Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez, Muhammed Lawal and Emmanuel Newton and Daniel Straus and Pat Curran. Unfortunately, Ortiz pulled out with an injury, and the much-ballyhooed card was moved to Spike TV.

Bellator gave it another shot in May. It stacked the card as much as possible, booking its two best fighters, Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler, for an epic third matchup, along with a long-simmering grudge match between “Rampage” and “King Mo.” The promotion added a clash between Ortiz and middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko, along with violence specialist Michael Page in a showcase matchup.

The end result was utter, complete, ridiculous madness. That is not necessarily a bad thing -- few fans walked away feeling like they had not received their money’s worth -- but a simple statement of fact. Alvarez suffered a concussion shortly before the fight, and although the promotion was willing to let him go ahead, he recused himself and was replaced with Will Brooks.

Page delivered on his promise with a brutal knockout, while Ortiz easily submitted Shlemenko in a stunning upset. Chandler, one of the shining faces of the promotion who had recently received a sizable new contract, lost a contentious decision to the relatively unknown Brooks in a fantastic fight. Jackson took a contentious decision of his own from Lawal, prompting the latter to take to the microphone with harsh words for Bellator founder Bjorn Rebney and “Rampage,” calling his opponent a “dick-riding ass,” among other epithets. He also strongly implied that the outcome of the fight had been determined beforehand or at least that Rebney was not inclined to see Jackson lose.

Although the inaugural effort reportedly did well, with final estimates around 100,000 buys, the fact that the promotion was forced to drain its other cards of recognizable names along with the utter PR disaster that accompanied it essentially spelled the end of Rebney as the organization’s head honcho.

Number 7 » He used Bellator as a launching pad into an exceptionally promising career. He dominated eight of the nine men he faced in the promotion, and although he drew substantial ire from fans for his suffocating style, nobody offered much in the way of a counterpoint to its effectiveness.