Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 10, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 10, 2023 Was gonna skip this but im watching so here's a vague as fuck thread for you. Bellator 296 heads to Paris on Friday night. So we get two UK friendly events this weekend with the UFC starting early on Saturday night. It'll be live on iplayer. . Main card Gegard Mousasi vs. Fabian Edwards Mansour Barnaoui vs. Brent Primus – Bellator lightweight World Grand Prix quarter-final bout Douglas Lima vs. Costello Van Steenis Thibault Gouti vs. Kane Mousah Preliminary card Denise Kielholtz vs. Paula Cristina Oliver Enkamp vs. Luca Poclit Davy Gallon vs. Saul Rogers Yves Landu vs. Piotr Niedzielski Sarvarjon Khamidov vs. Kevin Petshi Chris Gonzalez vs. Tim Wilde Fabacary Diatta vs. Keir Harvie Asael Adjoudj vs. Georges Sasu Bourama Camara vs. Romain Debienne Simon Biyong vs. Jose Augusto Steven Hill vs. Nicolo Solli The card is pretty deep here, a good advert of what Bellator Europe is all about. The main event i'm leaning towards Mousasi, after losing the title last time out it makes you wonder if Mousasi is just gonna give up trying altogether at some point but if he's up for it he should be beating Fabian Edwards. There's rumblings that if Edwards wins he'll be next for Johnny Eblen and Bellator will clearly look to cash in on his brother being a UFC Champ. Big fight. Douglas Lima is back and at Middleweight. He's on abit of a Marlon Moraes downfall. From some people's p4p lists to losing 4 on the bounce and just looking bad in pretty much all of them, is there anything left? just seems to lack any conviction in what's doing and never lets his hands fly. Van Steenis is no chump and could argue deserves to be in the Fabian Edwards spot on this show. Paris everyone... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 11, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 11, 2023 (edited) think that pic of Lima/Van Steenis really highlights the size difference between 170 and 185, Lima was always a massive 170lb'er but he looks much smaller that Van Steenis. Barnaoui is a monster lightweight too, jesus. Edited May 11, 2023 by Egg Shen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 12, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 12, 2023 seemingly posting this lovely graphic for myself, but... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 16, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 im officially knocking the Bellator threads on the head, nobody gives a toss 😄 I'll resurrect the general Bellator discussion thread if there's anything noteworthy going on in future. Bye Bellator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WeeAl Posted May 16, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 Bellator has become such an afterthought these days. Probably the oversaturation of the UFC as well as not having as many old names to help get eyes on a show for the younger fighters coming up. Possibly getting lost in the promotion as well that there aren't as many zero UFC weekends to target in order to get the news cycle space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 16, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 Yeah I get it, there's only about 6 active posters in here too so if its a busy one no one is watching, i'll just leave it and drum up the general thread and shove a fancy graphic in there on fight nights, saves clogging up the main screen 😄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted May 16, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 (edited) It's a tricky one. I want to watch more MMA, but I've got so many things going on at the moment, it's difficult to fit it into my life. But I will catch the odd event here and there. That said, with so much MMA content, it's also difficult to know who's best to follow - yes, the UFC have mostly the best in the world, but Bellator sound like they're gradually gaining some ground, PFL sounds just a lot more fun, and, of course, One is intriguing, if hard to keep up with. EDIT: Just had a read of the results, as Primus has had a weird career - and it continues! He was only in that quarter-final because of Sidney Outlaw getting popped (this is a shame on more than one level), so for him to then beat Barnaoui as a late replacement is yet another strange development for a guy who won a title through an injury stoppage. Edited May 16, 2023 by Carbomb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted May 16, 2023 Share Posted May 16, 2023 It is very bizarre, as a few years back I'd be all over Mousassi and Lima fighting. This is even on iplayer which makes it so easy to watch, but I skipped this one too. A major promotion and the most accesable way to ever watch it and seemingly no one did. It has to be over saturation for it to be like this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 16, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 definitely, there's only so much you can watch before you burn out for the week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted May 16, 2023 Share Posted May 16, 2023 This show (and thread) completely passed me by. I had no idea it was happening. Their social media marketing is terrible, they need to hype up fights way more than they do. They also need to stick to a day of a week for when their shows are on. When I know there is a Bellator show coming up on the weekend, I have no idea if it is on the Friday or Saturday, they need to be more consistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 16, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 16, 2023 I’ve pretty much completely fallen off with Bellator now. Save for the odd fight here or there, I just never seem to get around to watching the shows anymore. I want to like Bellator and there’s a bunch of fighters on the roster I’m a fan of but I just can’t be arsed unless it’s a Yoel or Pitbull or something. It doesn’t help that, for whatever reason, the bigger fights and the fights you expect to deliver often fall a bit flat. It’s weird. They make fights that sound great on paper but I can’t remember the last time Bellator had a truly great fight since…fuck, maybe Alvarez vs Chandler 2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted May 18, 2023 Share Posted May 18, 2023 I actually ended up watching the Gegard match, which was an absolute stinker, and the crowd at the Apex genuinely seemed louder than this lot did during most of this fight. Was like watching a Japanese show. Awful, and the Lima fight wasnt a whole lot better either, but at least he won. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 19, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 19, 2023 the Irish crowd is notorious for filtering out after the Irish fighters have finished, being in a dull fight wont help. Regarding what @wandshogun09said above. I 100% agree, and i'm sure we've discussed it before but Bellator genuinely had very few really good fights. It's a bit of a mystery really, why is that? it's not down to matchmaking because they put great fights together, the fights just rarely turn in to 'must see', when was there a fight of the year contender in Bellator? it's an odd one. I do think the commentary team brings the fights down a peg in general, without Mauro Ranallo the commentary team is the shits, it just lacks energy, John McCarthey just needs to fuck off. He spends half the night trying to convinve everyone he was a fighter once, plus he's dull as dishwater. The worst thing Bellator ever did from a media standpoint was hire him and Josh Thomson, both absolute toilet. Josh Thomson has been sitting on the analysis desk now for years and he hasn't got any better at it, still stuttering and talking bollocks. Crud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted May 19, 2023 Share Posted May 19, 2023 A big ingredient of a fight being great and a FOTY contender is the stakes involved. Bellator have no real stakes to play for, so nothing ever feels like it's really important. Most of the name fighters are either ex UFC guys or not very big 'names', so it can almost never be a really great fight. I think the other big factor is that no one watches it, so even if a fights great, no one has watched it to discuss it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 19, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 19, 2023 (edited) That’s the thing though, I rarely watch Bellator these days so I think sometimes that maybe I’m being harsh or missing something. But Ebb watches pretty much everything Bellator put out, and has done for years, and he says the same. And while I get what you’re saying about stakes, that doesn’t explain it really. Low stakes don’t necessarily exclude a fight from being great. MMA is the the kind of sport and has the kind of fanbase that if there’s a fight you need to go out of your way to see, you’ll hear about it. Even if it was in a promotion not many watch between two guys on an undercard. A lot of times that’s how you become a fan of a promotion in the first place. You see one banger of a fight that draws you in and then you start checking on that promotion more, even if just to see those two fighters again at first. And before you know it, you’re following the promotion. I got hooked on WEC that way, Strikeforce etc. Even Bellator, they did have some fun fights in the early days and I think they got me purely off that mad inverted triangle on Masvidal. I don’t know what or why it is but when you watch Bellator, there’s just very rarely a really good fight that you come away from the show buzzing about. Every promotion has fights that look great on paper and they fall flat but Bellator just never seem to have any luck with their big fights delivering. It’s really weird. They’ve got a strong roster and they match their fighters up for fun fights. They just fail to live up to it time and time again. I do think the commentary is an issue as well though. I remember not really minding Josh Thomson at one point but I don’t know why because, yeah, he’s shite. Big John is fucking terrible. He’s every bit as awful an announcer as he was great a referee. It’s a shame as well because, other than the commentary, I really like the overall presentation of their shows. Edited May 19, 2023 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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