Dynamite 1 Fallout

It was Bellator's Big Night. An event they had spent months hyping. The basket they put all there eggs into. It not only featured a big title fight with Tito Ortiz who for better or worse has come the face of Bellator in recent years challenging. It also featured a one night tournament and it was a hybrid show with Glory Kickboxing rules fights. The truth is Bellator could have done three separate shows with each of those as the hook. Instead though they went for broke. And I can't help but feel the event was a let down. Don't get me wrong I have seen worse shows. By no means were these the worst fights I have seen. But this show just felt like a missed chance. Instead of a major event it felt like two average shows put together.

Of course the biggest news coming out of Dynamite 1 was Fedor Emilenko's return to MMA and his reunion with the founder of Pride. Fedor's return will headline a New Year's Eve event that will be broadcast on Spike TV. The problem for Bellator is this show appears to one they have nothing to do with. The announcement began with Kevin Kay of Spike TV not Bellator boss Scott Coker introducing it. No mention was made of Bellator during the segment. Some have suggested Bellator will co-promote the unnamed event but it didn't come off that way. If they were going to co-promote or even loan one of there fighters as Fedor's foe it would have made all the sense in the world. Instead Fedor, Kay, and Nobuyuki Sakakibara stood together as Scott Coker snuck into the photo at the last second.

Production wise I really felt like I was watching a Pride FC tribute show and I mean that in a bad way. One thing Coker had going for him was the fact Strikeforce came off as it's own product. Same with Bellator back when it started. But since Viacom took over more and more it feels like Bellator is about using stars from other companies. For better or worse Tito Ortiz has become the face of Bellator. The spent big money on Phil Davis and brought in veteran Josh Thompson. Davis can be viewed a coup given his top five ranking but the fact Thompson I don't they really needed to go after. Thompson entered the show on a 3 fight skid. On top of that he's nearing age 37 and had openly talked about retirement. Honestly I feel Bellator would have been better off giving Thompson slot to another younger fighter. And I'm not the only one the feels this way as current Bellator Lightweight champion Will Brooks lashed out at the company on Twitter after Liam McGreay's interview was cut short to let Tito Ortiz talk.

Now like I said this felt like Pride Tribute show and it was clear that is what they were going for. In all the build up for the event we were reminded time and again about the old Pride and K-1 crossover shows. The stage was built to look like Pride's old event. They not only brought out fighters for a parade but even spent money to bring in Pride's old announcer. The problem is they are not Pride. Pride was it's own thing. It had it's own rules it had the best fighters in the world. Bellator might hope it can win over fans looking for a Pride fix but honestly I think those fans will just watch Fight Pass

The In Ring Action- The main card started with the first match of the tournament Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal taking on Linton Vassell. Over the last few years Mo has tried to be come more of pure boxer. It seemed like a recipe for disaster given Vassell's massive reach. But Lawal got more brawl style in this time landing a number of power punches that hurt Vassell in the first round. Surprisingly Mo didn't seem like he tried to finish often allowing Vassell to recover and get back into fight. Post fight King Mo blamed a slick canvas. He clearly slipped early on and fighters on the prelims also slipped. Vassell had better second round but never took control. It appeared Lawal had stamped his ticket to the finals but suffered an injury during the fight that took him out. The second fight of the opening round featured Phil Davis' Bellator debut against former champion Emmanuel Newton. In his two prior fights coming in Newton has looked awful and that trend continued here. Newton never got going and Davis easily took him down and submitted him. It gave Davis his first finish since 2010 but the problem is it doesn’t' show Davis is any better. Newton doesn't represent an elight fighter just another guy Davis would have easily beat in the UFC.

Than it was time to move to the Glory portion of the night. Calling it Glory isn't fair as only one fight featured Glory fighters instead two of the fighters were about promoting Bellator fighters using Kickboxing fights. Keri Anne Taylor-Melendez entered with a 2-1 Kickboxing record but hadn't fought in years. Still though she looked much better than her Hadley Griffinth who was making her kickboxing debut. Griffinth has fought MMA in the past but in six pro fight and eight total counting her armature career she only won once. It was a terrible mismatch. Melendez through great combinations landing at will. Griffith looked nervous and unable to land anything. There was never any doubt that Melendez was going to win. Now I have no problem with having Women fight but the problem is this wasn't the start of Glory doing a women's division. It was made clear Melendez will soon debut for Bellator. The second Glory Rules fight saw Paul Daley battle Fernando Gonzalez. Both men have kick boxed in the past but are more known as MMA fighters.

I really don't get this. Daley had openly called out Glory's best. Why giving him Nikey Hozelkin was unlikely there were still plenty of good fighters Glory could have used. That said I would assume it was Bellator or Viacom that came up with this. Using the Glory ring and name but just hoping Daley would score a big knockout and not have to worry about the ground game. The MMA side of things picked up with Josh Thompson making his Bellator debut. Thompson was given an easy win over Mike Bronzoulis. It was clear Bronzoulis had no answers for Thompson on the ground as The Punk stopped a three fight skid. Finally some actual Glory Kickboxers stepped into the ring as Saulo Cavalair re-matched with Zack Mwekassa for the vacant light heavyweight title.. Last time Cavalair knocked the Black Beast out with a head kick and tried to replicate that magic. The fight was good. Sadly the Glory Light Heavyweight division was built around Tyrone Spoong who had fought for Glory since a leg injury. And former champion Gokhan Saki who vacated the title after a contract dispute.

Than it was time to return tournament and the last thing Bellator wanted to happen happened. Going into this event Bellator made it clear they would have an alternate bout but didn’t' want the winner to actually advance. They even modified the rules to give the judges two chances to pick a winner in event of a draw. They had said “If the winner of a round cant' advance than the loser will.” The commission though stopped that. King Mo suffered a rib injury and was unable to move on. Under Bellator's modified rules that should have meant Linton Vassell got a second chance. Except the California Commission refused to allow that saying Vassell had taken to many punches in the head. Instead Francis Carmont advanced. Carmont has mostly fought at middleweight. He was a mid to low level fighter in the UFC. Davis easily knocked him out. But it's hard to be impressed by it. The UFC would be ripped to pieces if they had booked this fight. Of course Davis won this fight he's a better fighter from a higher weight class.

Finally it was main event time. For better or worse Bellator has built itself around Tito Ortiz. They put him big fights. They keep doing Unrivaled specials to hype him up. Early on Ortiz manged to score a takedown and seemed to turn back the clock until he was caught in an inverted triangle by champion Liam McGeary. The fact McGeary was so easily taken down by Ortiz is worrying but he still managed to get the win. Ortiz who is usually an excuse machine opening declared this was the best he's been in years and gave McGEary the credit for what he did.

Biggest Winners

RFA and WSOF- Both companies put on very good shows that were better than Dynamite. Hopefully people checked them out. Bellator is clearly number 2 in terms of size but it's not number 2 in terms of putting on the best show.

Liam McGeary- He kept the title. Even with all the promotion built around Ortiz most knew going it McGeary should win. Still though fights like this scream trap. And down side of losing isn't people going “He lost to a legend.” Its people going “He lost to a guy that one like one fight in the UFC since 2006. It juts shows how bad Bellator is.” The win doesn't make McGeary elite but it shows he's not a can. Also a win over Phil Davis will get people talking. Plus if nothing else McGeary can smile knowing he jacked up what ever plans Viacom had.

Phil Davis- Similar to McGeary, Davis was expected to win. But how many times have we seen heavy favorite upset? Davis did what he needed to do he came into the event in shape ready to fight. Why there are doubts about how good the men he beat are compared to fighters he's already faced and beat. Still though Davis got his first finish in years and than capped off the event with another one.

Biggest Losers

Glory- This show did get a lot of press and the idea of having Kickboxing and MMA could be a good hook. Glory has often tried to use MMA fighter to promote the company. This could have been a great chance to win over MMA fans. The problem as I said above was the fact two of the three Glory Rules fight weren't with Glory fighters. When I watch Glory I see high level technical fighters and many great finishes. Two of the fights were pretty one sided mis matches. Also it doesn't help none of the fighter were finished. With two of the winners moving back to Bellator, Glory can't even promote them on upcoming cards.

Emanuel Newton- Remember when this guy was on a winning streak held the Bellator Title and could be argued as a legit top ten fighter? Man that seems like forever ago. The warning signs were there against Linton Vassell. Newton looked off in the fight and needed a fifth round submission to keep his title. That could be explained away as one bad night one bad match up than he looked even worse against Liam McGreary this time there would be no last second finish to save his title. Worse for Newton he tested positive for Pot. Newton talked a good talk before the fight. Admitted he had taken things to easy. Had bought own hype to much. Than Newton went out and looked awful against Phil Davis. Yes Davis was the heavy favorite going into the event. But that is 3 awful fights in a row and 2 bad losses in a row. Newton is 45 fights into his career you have to wonder if his best days are behind him.

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.