Just a day ahead of his latest event, Bellator President Scott Coker today made an unexpected announcement regarding the Mixed Martial Arts promotion. Namely, that they’re no longer just in the MMA business. At a press conference held before the Bellator 149 weigh-ins, Coker revealed the beginning of a new extension to the Viacom owned production: Bellator Kickboxing.
Bellator Kickboxing’s debut event is set to take place on April 16 in Torino, Italy, headlined by combat sports veteran Melvin Manhoef vs. Alexandru Negrea. The card will air, as nearly all Bellator media, on Spike TV, following Bellator 152.
Spike TV have a history in the kickboxing business, airing until last year the world’s premiere Kickboxing organisation Glory. That relationship ended in October 2015, and now it appears that Scott Coker’s new branch of Bellator could have been a factor.
The move comes at an interesting time. Every time Bellator gains notable interest or increased media coverage, usually found when the company is putting on one of their more ‘unique’ shows, the gap between the UFC and Bellator seems to shake, shudder and… (dare it be said) shrink?
Indeed, it seems with every tent pole event Coker puts on, he puts the extra attention to good use. The last time Shamrock and Slice fought, at Bellator 138, the company used a similar press conference to announce a crossover event with Glory Kickboxing.
That show eventually turned out to be underwhelming, with the majority of the bouts being less than thrilling, and with Glory being dropped by Spike TV, it seemed that was the end of any such mixed events.
Maybe the end of mixed events, but evidently not the end of Bellator and kickboxing.
Interestingly, last week the UFC announced it had reached an agreement to bring Glory to its online streaming service Fight Pass. Whether or not the Bellator announcement made today is a reaction to that or not is undetermined, but some media pundits have theorised that in actuality, Bellator Kickboxing was created so Coker could continue to control all promotional aspects with Spike TV’s combat sports.
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“We really started as a kickboxing company,” Coker said at the press conference. “And this was in 1985, we started a kickboxing series that aired on ESPN, actually.
“I always loved throwing in kickboxing, worked with promoters all over the world, had the chance to work with many organisations and today we’re happy to announce that Spike TV, Bellator and our whole operation is going to go into the kickboxing business.
“We’re going to start Bellator Kickboxing in 2016.”
Coker also noted that the rules of the promotion would be similar to that of K1, a kickboxing promotion with which he used to work (and probably the promotion that took the sport of kickboxing to it’s largest popularity).
Also at the event was Spike TV’s Vice-President of Sports & Specials, Jon Slusser.
“Scott Coker is the best promoter in the business,” Slusser said. “And we’re thrilled to partner with him on Bellator KickBoxing. We love kickboxing. What we’ve learned about kickboxing is that you need to build recognisable stars for the U.S. audience to cheer for.
“No one is better suited for that task than Scott Coker. You’ve seen him do it in Strikeforce, K-1, and now he’s doing it for here. We’re thrilled to help him do that with Bellator Kickboxing.”
Fighters under contract with the Bellator brand will be allowed to compete in both kickboxing and mixed martial arts going forward, with Coker saying he would offer no resistance to any fighter decisions.
“We know how to do this as good or better than anybody,” Coker said. “Because this kickboxing business is something I’ve been doing for a long time. It’s something that I felt like, we could do it properly. Let’s get our fighters that want to fight in kickboxing, who are fighting MMA right now, and let them fight on both sides of the ledger.”
As well as Manhoef and Negrea, also scheduled to appear on the inaugural fight card are kickboxers Raymond Daniels, Kevin Ross, and Denise Kielholtz.
