Bellator MMA expands with TV Deals in Europe and Australia.

Bellator has continued its effort to become a global brand.  The Viacom owned company has secured a deal with multimedia company Electus International that will allow the promoter to be viewed in over 400 million homes and over 120 countries.  This deal begins to make Bellator look like a true competitor to ,mixed martial arts flagship, the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Expansion into a new market will also grow the exposure not only of the Belator brand, but of the sport of mixed martial arts itself.  The immediate result, I can see is that countries will begin to accept cage fighting as it becomes more popular within those countries.  Just last week the French Judo Federation prohibited any Judo coaches from teaching MMA, and announcing harsh sanctions to those who defied the federation.

A concern is that mixed martial arts is beginning to permeate all traditional martial arts.  I myself can attest to this.  I started training when I was twelve in Shukokai Karate and from an early age I excelled in several tournaments, but after I saw my first UFC fight on tv which was Tito Ortiz v. Ken Shamrock II, I became obsessed. I found myself looking at videos of old fights and breaking them down and analyzing all the minute movements and techniques. In addition, I would watch hours and hours of footage from some of jiu-jitsu's great like Rickson and Royler.  What resulted was that I started to take some of these techniques and implement them into my sparring and karate classes, much to the chagrin of my Sensei.

In the past decade mixed martial arts academies have opened up like McDonald's franchises within the United States and I believe that this will begin to happen in countries where a vacuum is created due to this influx of interest in mixed martial arts.

Just this past month there was clear evidence of the growth of mixed martial arts in Europe when over 36,000 people from over 40 countries filled an arena in Sweden which had a main event that began at 3 a.m local time.  This attendance is only beat by UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre in Canada which squeezed 60,000 people into the arena.  Clearly there is a craving and a fan base for these promoters to exploit.  This expansion can only be viewed as a positive for not only Bellator MMA, but mixed martial arts as a whole.

UFC to Step in With more Out-of-Competition Random Testing

Lorenzo Fertitta, Dana White, and Zuffa attorney Lawrence Epstein sat down for a press conference this Wednesday announcing new guidelines for PED testing after the wake of numerous positive tests.  The UFC announced that there was a problem in the sport and that testing needed to be more stringent in order to clean it up.  They also announced that a third party company would step in to conduct random out of competition testing in addition to the efforts already put forth by the various state athletic commissions as well as the commissions around the world, but declined to say who the third party would be.

The UFC also added that there would be much more stringent penalties to those who have positive tests for PEDs, which could range from 2-4 years suspension depending whether a fighter had tested positive in the past.  Lorenzo Fertita, the CEO and owner of Zuffa the parent company of the UFC said that "the current punishment on fighters is not enough to deter the use of PEDs."

UFC President, Dana White also stated that a fighter who weighs his or her options, evaluating the rewards gained from fighting over the risk of being caught are quite unbalanced with some fighters choosing the latter.He echoed that the new penalties would make fighters think twice as a prolongued suspension could be career ending. As a warning to fighters White stated, "If you are doing performance enhancing drugs, you will be caught."

When asked about the implications of main events being canceled, the UFC brass stated that they would take the risk in order to clean up the sport, stating that UFC match makers Sean Shelby and Joe Silva would have to get "more creative" (a job that has been essential after the strain of injuries that have decimated fight cards in the past).

Of course, the other issue is with commissions outside of the United States and how this effort could be implemented on a global scale as well as the costs associated with such an endeavor.  I would say that it is definitely ambitious and it will take some time to implement the program uniformly.  But this is not the first time the sport has met with adversity.  It is also not an issue of cheating either.  It is an issue of safety for all the athletes who compete within the UFC and all the other mixed martial arts promotions throughout the world.

Nevada State Athletic Commission Reportedly Forced the UFC to Replace Coach for TUF 4 Brazil

It was originally slated so that Mixed Martial Arts legends Anderson Silva and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua would be the coaches for the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter Brazil.  Several news outlets have reported that this is no longer the case.  It appears that the UFC wanted to maintain Silva as a coach, despite the controversy swirling around his failed out-of-competition drug test (although yesterday it was reported that another test taken on January 19th came back clean).  BloodyElbow.com reported today that Silva will be replaced with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (another revered Brazilian fighter who had previously coached the show against Fabricio Werdum).

Looking at this from a business perspective, it is a huge blow to the UFC.  The Brazilian version of the Ultimate Fighter is broadcast on Globo, the country's most viewed network, which brought many new eyeballs to the sport.  The success of the UFC in the country may be due to the rich history of Brazilian athletes who have been successful in the Octagon.  Overall since the inception of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993, there have been 10 champions from Brazil.  None of course shone brighter than the former Middleweight champion Anderson Silva who since his debut in 2006 remained undefeated until July of 2013 where he lost his title to the current champion Chris Weidman.  

Brazilians took pride in the fact that their country was represented so well as its athletes began to dominate the UFC's divisions.  Currently, MMA and the UFC plays only second fiddle to the national sport of soccer.  Every event has sold out fairly quickly and the atmosphere and energy surrounding the sport is insane considering that the sport has been around for little over two decades.

It is understandable that the Nevada State Athletic Commission would make this request given that Silva has such a big name; his discipline, if it stands, will demonstrate to other fighters the consequences of their actions.  Now that these tests are becoming more and more stringent it will be interesting to see who else is going to get popped for PEDs and how promoters will now have to adapt when entire fight cards are endangered by the actions of one or more fighters.