The Doggy Bag

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Bellator needs to completely overhaul its current format by removing the tournament-style because it is hampering its success in my opinion. If it has the desire to do a four-man grand prix with brackets every once in a while to determine title contenders, I can live with that, but when its champions are in more non-title fights than title fights, something is wrong.

Bellator needs to get out of this “earned, not given” championship mentality, unless it does tournaments for every weight class for every season; that’s the only way I could see the current format continuing on. Don’t try to offer MMA with a twist; simply offer MMA in the form everyone wants to see and with every fight adhering to the Unified Rules. -- Joe from Long Island, N.Y.

Jon Luther, Sherdog Radio Network personality and contributing writer: To say the tournament itself is the crux of all Bellator’s woes is far too simplistic; the issue lies with how the tournament is utilized. There is plenty of evidence to support the notion that tournaments are where stars are born in mixed martial arts. After all, the benchmark promotion was jumpstarted by a tournament of stylists in an effort to identify to the dominant discipline. Pride Fighting Championships’ grand prix format produced fighters that are still prominent figures in the MMA world today, like Dan Henderson and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. The combination of the tournament format with other factors, like novelty and name value, catapulted the UFC and Pride fighters who partook into stardom. Bellator, however, exists in an era of MMA where the majority of marquee figures belong to other organizations and the tournament format has already been explored. Additionally, it has tweaked its format so that the fighters who walk away as tournament winners in their respective divisions take a trajectory separate from those who participate in the same tournament the next time around.

So to say that Bellator is attempting to create a “sense of uniqueness” is not exactly true. Bellator uses its tournament format to identify stars, build them up with a sense of legitimacy and establish their name in the mixed martial arts world. However, I think you’re absolutely right that, at some point, the tournament becomes burdensome, and that can be attributed to how it is executed.

Bellator’s insistence on having the season winners fight veterans of the sport in the offseason needs some kind of fix. Pitting Hector Lombard against Falaniko Vitale and Ben Askren against Nick Thompson might make for good occasional tests for the champions, but they are also risky and awkward. What if the champions lose, especially if they are fighting in an entirely different promotion?

Preventing this would necessitate something along the lines of your suggestion: installing a tournament for each weight class every season for the respective titleholder to participate in. Regardless of feasibility, it seems as though Bellator would be better off to ditch the tournament format at that point anyway.

While a tournament helps acquaint viewers with individual fighters through a comprehensible structure of competition, Bellator underestimates the casual MMA fan’s ability to take notice of fighters based on talent alone. Additionally, it underestimates his or her ability to discern who is deserving of what.

The good news is that Bellator has created solid stars, courtesy of the tournament format, and currently finds itself as the top promotion outside of the Zuffa umbrella. It is my hope that the foundation established through Bellator’s tournaments and its newfound status allows it to open up its format and let the workings of the promotion move freely without the gridlock that can often accompany a tournament.