....are you ****ing kidding, Bellator? As of a month after the fight these guys will be a combined 80 years old. This whole GP tourney is a bit of a farce, really - half the bracket are natural light heavies (Bader, King Mo, and Rampage anyway; Sonnen fought the bulk of his career at middleweight and if he walks this whole thing it just further delegitimizes it rather than standing as some great accomplishment for him) and the rest are old AF- with Fedor, Mir, Nelson, and Meathead all within a year in either direction of the 40yo mark. Anyway, who comes through QF#3?
Sad fight.... Unfortunately I think Mir probably KO's him in 1. Fedor is completely shot. Hoping for a miraculous run and then for him to retire though.
And yes the whole thing is pretty farcical... But it's not as bad as some of the other Bellator sideshows(Shamrock/Gracie/Slice/Dada debacles) It will be like a train wreck though... Won't be able to look away.
When did Bellator start to suck? Around when I stopped following MMA they were still a distant second behind the UFC but they were by no means a joke of a promotion.
The Bjorn Rebney seasonal tournament format was by no means perfect but the freakshow side of things really took off under Coker. They have a decent roster - it's just poorly utilized.
Yeah, I never understood the flack Rebney took. For any outfit to rise to as high visibility as they did in the shadow of UFC (by that point a juggernaut that would gobble up any rival in their path, a`la Vince McMahon...RIP Strikeforce, WEC, etc) was pretty impressive, he made do best he could with the hand dealt him, not sure Bellator ever could have been made into anything more than a second-rate but still eminently watchable program, filling that middle niche between the iconic near-monopoly of the sport that was already selling out huge venues, and the little rink-a-dink regional fighting leagues that sprouted up everywhere in the wake of its popularity hoping to cash in.
Yeah under his watch it had a reputation as a 2nd rate but a consistently entertaining org full of great fights and finishes(obviously brought on by the sense of urgency that fights competing in tournaments usually had) Now come Viacom and then Coker as head and we're treated to watching hasbeen's like Shamrock and Gracie and never were freakshows like Slice and Dada competing in farces that set back MMA back 20+ years(hell, that might even be slating the early UFC and Pancrase days)
Mir stops him or taps him. I don't mind the masters league format Bellator is seeming to run atm. These guys wanna get paid and they can do so against people just as old as them. UFC needs Macdonald back though.
I chose a draw, but not because I expect that there will be a draw, it's just "painful" to watch the former great fighter (even the GOAT) now fight with far from top-fighters and even lose to them. And the result for this fight will be nothing in independence who will win
