Rampage Jackson Prepares to Battle King Mo in Bellator MMA's 1st PPV Main Event (VIDEO)
Bellator 120 will be a night of "firsts" for Bellator MMA, as the company is set to make their pay-per-view (PPV) debut Saturday night, with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson taking on "King Mo" Muhammed Lawal in the main event.
Bellator was originally slated to air Bellator 106 as the company's first PPV, with Jackson scheduled to face Tito Ortiz in the main event until Ortiz had to pull out of the bout due to an injury. The company changed plans, airing the event live on Spike TV (their business partners, via Viacom, who bought a majority stake in the mixed martial arts (MMA) company in 2011) rather than PPV, with Eddie Alvarez challenging Michael Chander for his Lightweight title in a main event rematch, after Alvarez lost the title to Chandler in an epic bout.
The move to broadcasting the event on Spike proved to be a blessing in disguise for the company, especially after Chander and Alvarez put on another war that saw Alvarez walk away with the Lightweight title after a split decision.
"It's funny how things work out," says founder, chairman and CEO of Bellator MMA Bjorn Rebney to LatinPost.com. "Here you had the second fight, coming off the heels of the first fight, which I thought was the best MMA fight I had ever seen in the thousands upon thousands of MMA fights, and it got exposed to this huge audience. So an enourmous audience of millions of people got to see Ed and Mike put on that incredible second fight."
Bellator's PPV main event was once again struck by the injury bug, with Alvarez and Chandler set to fight one last time to conclude a great trilogy between two of Bellator's best fighters on the roster. But Alvarez suffered a concussion during training, which forced the card to change, with Chandler now taking on Will Brooks for the interim-Lightweight Championship in the co-main event.
"The difference between this call and the call that I got (for Bellator 106) was that this was an incredibly deep card with two true main events that were getting promoted equally," said Rebney during the press conference promoting the card. "Just a monster amount of depth. It was just one of those moments where you say, 'There ya go,' and we got through this.'"
While MMA fans may be disappointed about the the postponement of Chandler-Alvarez III, Jackson and Lawal should provide plenty of fireworks for the night. On top of the fact that the match-up is the finals of the Light Heavyweight division tournament -- with the winner getting a title shot at champion Emanuel Newton, Rampage and King Mo have outright disdain for one another.
"These guys legitimately don't like each other. There's no act to it, there's not spin to it, they just can't stand each other," says Rebney to LatinPost.com, with the two combatants having gotten into a shoving match at the weigh-ins.
Both Lawal and Jackson have much to gain with a victory on Saturday. Lawal is looking to avenge consecutive losses to Newton after a rough start since debuting in Bellator MMA while Jackson is looking to add one more title, late in his career, after finding success in PRIDE Fighting Championships and Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Ortiz will also be in action Saturday night, facing off against Middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko, in a special attraction match. Shlemenko is moving up in weight, putting his 13-fight winning streak on the line against Ortiz, in hopes of increasing his profile. Shlemenko wants to establish himself as one of the best fighters in the world and is ready to step into the spotlight at the expense of the MMA legend.
"He had to do something that would jar people, to get people to recognize what you see and what I see in Shlemenko," says Rebney. "I'll take Shlemenko against any fighter, on Earth, today at 185 pounds. Any fighter."
For Bellator, expanding into PPV is not only a good way to generate more revenue but it allows for the company, who normally determines their title contenders on the basis of single-elimination bracket-style tournaments, to put together match-ups such as Ortiz-Shlemenko.
"Given our format, I never really have the chance to make weird interesting fights, the chance to go 'man, I would love for that guy to fight that guy, ok, we'll do it.' This was just a weird meeting of the stars."