How to Grow Glory

For many years K-1 was the top kickboxing promotion in the world. But as the company has declined and face financial issues Glory has taken it's place. Glory has been airing shows in the United States since reaching a deal with Spike TV in 2013. So many fans start to boo when ever a MMA fight features to much wrestling. So you would think fans would be flocking Glory since it's a pure stand up fight. Any types of clinches are broken up. Many often declare they want to see MMA do old school rules with one night tournaments. Again you would think they would flock to Glory which does do one night tournaments including there one and only pay per view which featured eight men. But the reported buyrate for the PPV was rather underwhelming and television viewership hasn't grown at a high rate. So what can Glory do to jump start it's growth.

This isn't all on Glory. Kickboxing has often struggled to find a market in the US when compared to other combats such as boxing or MMA. There have been popular fighters and promotions at different times with fight even airing television. Today there are many local kickboxing shows that run. The Muay Thai Nations a tournament held in Iowa has been growing very well. But still kickboxing lags behind other combat sports. Glory has tried to take advantage of of the MMA fan base having UFC veterans Pat Berry and Mirko Cro Cop fight on Glory cards. Also they have worked closely with Bellator that has seen Glory stars appear on Bellator shows and will see a co promoted show later this year. Still though Viewership hasn't sky rocketed or come close to matching Bealltor's biggest shows on Spike. In terms of press coverage Glory is only picked up by MMA sites such as Sherdog. It's never mentioned on ESPN or Fox Sports 1.

Now in my opinion I think Glory has missed the mark in terms of appareling to MMA fans or following the UFC's model to promote. Simply putting mixed martial arts fighters on a card won't just draw. Berry had a lot of exciting but more often than not came up on the losing end of those fights. Cro Cop is a legend but he only appeared once. While he had rebuilt his record with good wins out of the UFC many casual fans only remember him form his UFC work which he under performed. Not helping things has been how Glory has promoted many events.

The UFC is all over television, each pay per view has a countdown special while cards on the Fox Network get the Road To The Octagon special. On top of that that there is UFC Tonight, Ultimate Insider, and Unleashed with other shows airing classic fights. Glory obviously won't get the same amount of show that the UFC will. But there has been a real lack of preview specials. A few have aired but they are pretty rare. Compare that to the recent hype job Spike and Bellator did for the Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock fight had. With so much to watch out there more causal fans need to be enticed. By doing a preview and hyping up who to watch you give fans a chance to connect with fighters.

Another issue is Glory holds a show every couple of months for the most part. Again with casual fans that makes it hard for them to get into the fights and become familiar with the fighters. Now I don't think Glory should suddenly start running weekly shows because that could backfire. More expense and over all weaker cards. But Glory does have over twenty shows worth of fight that they could some type of Best of Show. I do recall Glory doing one countdown show but it only focused on knockouts. As a result any action was clipped to about thirty seconds. Compare that to UFC Unleashed. I think people often under estimate how important Unleashed was to the UFC. That show gave them a chance to introduce new fans from the Ultimate Fighter to top UFC talent of the day.

With Glory's current system the televised portion of the card is built around a four man tournament. Along with one title fight as the main event. By doing some type of best of show you have a chance to show people fighters the skill current champion such as Rico Vearhoven or Artem Levin have and make them want to tune into when they fight again. That would also work with a preview special. Fans would get to know the fighters and understand there stories. Its similar to the recent NBA finals. Even the most casual of sports fan knew the story of LeBron James trying to win a championship team on his home town team.

Of course all this depends on who willing Spike TV is to give Glory more TV time. With Spike's recent commitment to it's Friday Night Lights Out series it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. Primer Boxing Championship currently gets previews for it's card and will often do a mini documentary looking at at least one of the fighters. We have also seen specials hyping many of Bellator's biggest cards. Glory though has lacked any real extra promotion since the start of Friday Night Lights Out. The lack could be due to lack of money being put in. While Spike might be willing to air such specials they may not be wiling to spend money to produce them. Behind the scenes Glory has undergone some changes with spending being cut down on. Sadly that led to the departure of several elite fighters such as Tyrone Sponge.

What Glory doesn't need to do it is start running gimmick heavy freak show fights. Recently there was a report that Glory was interested in holding a fight with Bill Goldberg a former professional wrestling champion and recent WWE departure Alberto El Patron/Del Rio. Now El Patron real name Jose Rodriguez does have some real fighting experience. How ever his highest profile fight came in Pride where he was easily knocked out by Cro Cop. While the WWE mad numerous efforts to push him as a top star as both a heel (villain) or face (hero) with numerous runs as world champion he never was very popular in the WWE. Goldberg would be an even worse idea to have fight. He's forty eight years old has never competed in MMA or Kickboxing. Also his peak in terms of popularity came in 1998. El Patron was at least on TV as recently as 2014. Goldberg hasn't wrestled since 2003 and not since 2002 in America. His higher profile appearance has been hosting a show on the defect Speed Channel.

And it is different than UFC getting Lesnar, CM Punk or even Bellator having current TNA wrestler Bobby Lashley. Lesnar and Lashley have legit amateur wrestling backgrounds even winning titles at high levels. Punk they can afford to role the dice on a bit. He was the WWE's most popular star to the point fans still chant for him at times even though its been over a year since he last appeared. Also the UFC has enough creditably that people know elite fighters compete there. If Punk does well he's showed the world he eared his place. If he fails than he's just another fighter that got his chance and didn't do well on the big show.

Glory does put on an excellent show I think a few changes in terms of promotion will make a huge difference. It's not just enough to simply put on good fights. Fans want stars they want to connect with the people they are watching. The good news for Glory it's a young company and can keep growing.