This Saturday, May 17th, Bellator 120 heads to the Landers Center in Southhaven, Mississippi for the company’s first ever PPV offering. The card will now be headlined by the interim Lightweight title bout between Will Brooks and Michael Chandler. Look for the line to hit the sport books this week, as the match was just cobbled together by Bellator. There is no way that Chandler will emerge as anything but the favorite when the lines does hit the books.
You have to eel a little for Bellator. They cancelled their first attempt at a PPV, and they have to seriously have considered cancelling this event when Lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez pulled out due to an injury. Anyway you cut it, the company is going to lose, be it face or money. That they have opted to burn mopney and stay on PPV is a admirable to an extent, but the card is just not worth plunking down money for.
Will Brooks is a solid young fighter, part of what makes the Bellator Lightweight division probably their most watchable weight class. He is coming off a nice set of wins and was likely in Bellator’s queue as a tournament winner, pending a title shot.
Brooks is in a tough spot and he runs the risk of getting lost in the shuffle. He was going to follow up a challenge the champion (be it Alvarez or Chandler) in his next fight, which was going to be a hard act to follow after what is clearly the most anticipated match up in Bellator history. Now he has to replace that match, and he does not have the drawing power to do so. Though he is a nice prospect, he probably does not have the maturity or skill set to deliver a performance as memorable as the one expected from Alvarez and Chandler.
Plus, Bellator is going to have to plan for the scenario in which he wins. If brooks beats Chandler, that means the Alvarez vs Chandler re-match will not be next, and it means that it may never happen. For the long term good of the company, unless Alvarez is gone for an extremely long period of time, Chandler should have been shelved waiting for Alvarez. Though Brooks has a chancve to play spoiler, he is likely little more than a sacrificial lamb at this point.
