World Series Of Fighting have thrown down the guantlet to rival promotion Bellator by challenging them to a pay-per-view showdown featuring their best fighters in 2014.
Going one step further, WSOF exec Ali Abdelaziz even offered up a potential fight card during an interview on ‘The MMA Hour’ show with Ariel Helwani yesterday.
If he got his way, Abdelaziz would have the PPV event headlined by a light-heavyweight fight between one of WSOF’s hottest properties, kickboxing star Tyrone Spong and Bellator’s biggest draw, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, with a host of other big names and current champions competing elsewhere on the card.
It’s an exciting looking card and a fun idea all-round, though it’s highly unlikely that it’s anything that Bellator will be seriously considering.
For one thing, it’s just not practical for Bellator to stack 10 of their best fighters on one card when they have a busy weekly fight schedule to adhere too.
Also, they are soidly established as the second biggest promotion in the world at this moment in time, so they have more to lose than gain from this challenge.
Of course, the reality is that Abdelaziz won’t be thinking that Bellator will accept either, but it’s a great way to start the new year with a bang by getting everyone talking about this hypothetical card, which does a good job of showing that they could field a very competitive line-up of stars against Bellator’s best.
WSOF still have a long way to go if they want to catch up with Bellator on the TV ratings front though. Last year their shows on NBC Sports were generally seen by around 200,000+ viewers, though did slip to as low as 98,000 at the end of the year, while Bellator settled in at around the 600-700,000 mark for their last season on Spike TV.
WSOF have an ace up their sleeve, however, as they’ve secured two live events on the main NBC channel in 2014 which could result in potentially millions of viewers watching those shows, numbers that Bellator would struggle to compete with.
Check out the full WSOF Vs Bellator fight card suggested by Abdelaziz below.
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Tyrone Spong vs. Quinton Jackson
Anthony Johnson vs. Attila Vegh
Andrei Arlovski vs. Vitaly Minakov
Marlon Moraes vs. Eduardo Dantas
Yushin Okami vs. Alexander Shlemenko
Rousimar Palhares vs. Douglas Lima
Justin Gaethje vs. Eddie Alvarez (or Michael Chandler)
Georgi Karakhanyan vs. Daniel Straus
Jon Fitch vs. Rick Hawn
David Branch vs. Brett Cooper
