Bellator and What Happens When Dynamite Explodes

Hey, guess what everyone? Pride is gone. It’s gone and it’s never coming back…

…but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it when someone tries to revive the spirit of it, as awkward and disjointed as the effort may ultimately be.

Thus was the case of Dynamite, the first joint effort between Bellator MMA and Glory Kickboxing to create one of the biggest combat sports spectacles North America has ever seen, combining the most exciting aspects of both sports and bringing them together in an aesthetically pleasing package that will ultimately deliver great action, greater surprises, and benefit both companies and all of the fans with a yearly tradition that everyone can look forward to.

Or that’s the theory, anyway.

In practice, the show was all right. The MMA portion was actually pretty good, whereas the kickboxing portion was…much less so. Now, I won’t claim to be a huge kickboxing fan (because I’m not) but, if the Glory portion of the show was intended to get me interested in watching their product, it failed.

I question the choice of fights Glory gave us for Dynamite. The title fight between Saulo Cavalari and Zack Mwekassa had relevance, even though it wasn’t the best matchup as far as rankings go, but the other two fights featured Paul Daley, who I’d rather see in an MMA fight than a kickboxing fight, and Keri Anne Taylor-Melendez, who is more known for being Gilbert Melendez’s wife than for anything she ever accomplished as a fighter.

Kickboxing has never been able to get a real foothold in America, especially not compared to MMA. This was the biggest spotlight that Glory has had to show our fanbase why we should care about them and the result was three lackluster decisions between two non-kickboxers, two irrelevant fighters, and two fighters who shouldn’t have been facing each other to begin with. There was no star power, there were no knockouts, and there was nothing really to get excited over except when Saulo got his hand raised because that meant the lights over the Bellator cage were getting turned on again.

Seriously, if that was Glory putting their best foot forward, then why would I ever want to watch them again?

Bellator, on the other hand, gave us the goods. Well, as best as Bellator can.

They gave us some big-name fighters competing in exciting matchups. Guys such as…Phil Davis? The guy who could only win in the UFC by wet-blanketing his opponents? The guy who couldn’t finish a fight and hadn’t since the first Obama administration?

Yep. He made his debut on Saturday and he looked outstanding in becoming the winner of Bellator’s one-night light heavyweight tournament. First, he made former champion Emmanuel Newton look like he was competing in his very first jiu-jitsu class by…uh…well…wet-blanketing him, but it was a dominant wet-blanketing, so much so that Phil didn’t just choose to lay on top. Nope. He took Newton down and he fished for submissions, ultimately catching Manny with a kimura that had him tapping before the first round was over. It was a great debut that gave Phil strong momentum heading into the tournament final against King Mo, who gave a mighty thrashing to former title loser Linton Vassell, winning his side of the bracket by unanimous decision.

Except Phil didn’t fight King Mo in the finals. The problem with doing a tournament like this in modern MMA is that, assuming your event is sanctioned by an athletic commission that actually has a clue what it is doing, there are going to be rules in place to ensure all fighters are healthy enough to compete no matter how many fights they have in one night. King Mo, while beating Vassell, came out of the fight injured, so he was not allowed to advance.

Bellator’s contingency plan for the situation was that the loser of the fight would advance, but Vassell was injured too because duh. So, advancing to the finals in their place was the winner of the reserve bout from the prelims…Francis Carmont? Man, he was boring in the UFC too. Well, except when he was getting his ass kicked.

The good news then was that Carmont wasn’t boring in the finals against Davis, mainly because he got his ass kicked. Phil made himself look like a better striker than the Glory kickboxers by catching Carmont with a looping left from out of range. It clipped Carmont’s chin enough to drop him, allowing Phil the chance to pounce and land a few more blows before the fight was stopped, giving Davis the win and the tournament crown.

So, in his very first night in Bellator, Phil won two fights – one by submission, one by knockout – to win a tournament that not only gives him the next light heavyweight title shot but his own belt that looks just like the one the champion wears? I’d say that’s a successful debut. Things are wonderful indeed for Mr. Wonderful.

The best news that may have come out of the event, aside from that little tidbit about some no-name Russian fighter telling Dana White and Scott Coker to go to hell while he runs off to Japan to wait for his former employer to give him another can to crush *WINK*, was that Tito Ortiz is not the Bellator Light Heavyweight Champion. Liam McGeary is, proving once again what a beast of a man he is.

Tito had the right strategy for the fight: tie McGeary up and find out if Great Britain has gotten any better at teaching its fighters about takedown defense and defensive wrestling. What he didn’t account for, though, is how good Liam’s submissions are.

Tito did end up on top of Liam, although it was due to the champion pulling guard on a guillotine choke attempt, but he had little chance to do anything, as Liam kept his guard very active, giving Tito little room to breathe between his armbar and triangle attempts. Tito tried his best to fight them off, even slamming out of an armbar, but he couldn’t contain the onslaught as, almost immediately after the slam, Liam threw his legs up for an inverted triangle choke that had Tito tapping quick and throwing his hands up in anger that he got caught even quicker. It’s okay, Tito. At least you didn’t have to fight Frank Shamrock again.

So, overall it was a successful show. The Glory fights failed to impress, although I doubt that, had the kickboxing been good, it would have affected their future business all that much, and Bellator continued their trend of delivering big fights with a big fight feel. Scott Coker has done an amazing job in raising Bellator’s profile in the short amount of time he’s been at the helm and, while some things aren’t perfect, such as how aggressively Bellator promoted name fighters like Ortiz and Davis when the man who holds the belt they’re gunning after deserves some attention too, Dynamite was still another great event, one I do hope we see again.

Pride is gone. It’s gone and it’s never coming back, but, as long as we have promotions like Bellator trying its best to keep the memory of that promotion alive, it will never be forgotten. Its spirit shall live on.

Seriously, though, former Pride President Nobuyuki Sakakibara is starting a new MMA promotion? And its first event is going to be on New Year’s Eve in Japan? And Fedor is going to main event? And it’s going to air LIVE AND FREE on Spike?

Well, it’s not Pride but it’ll have to do.

PRIDE NEVA DIE! LONG LIVE ZOMBIE PRIDE!

PRIDE NEVA DIE! LONG LIVE ZOMBIE PRIDE!

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.