Buckle up for the most exciting event of the year as Bellator and Rizin collaborate to put up a star studded crossover PPV
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The appealing poster for the Rizin-Bellator crossover PPV
The MMA world doesn’t produce too many crossovers – but when it does, fans are usually in for a great treat.
That trend has followed suit, as Scott Coker, the CEO of Bellator, just posted one of the slickest promotional posters for an upcoming event featuring Bellator fighters taking on Rizin fighters. This will be housed under the Rizin banner, as Rizin 40 and will take place at Saitama Super Arena, in Japan.
The details of the biggest fights on offer can be gauged from the poster itself. Bellator stars Patricio Pitbull and A.J. McKee will take on Brazilians Kleber Koike, and Roberto Satoshi Souza, respectively, from Rizin. Other fights include Hiromasa Ougikubo versus Kyoji Horiguchi and Soo Chul Kim versus Juan Archuleta.
Interestingly, this is Ougikubo and Horiguchi’s third fight, with Horiguchi trumping his opponent on both previous occasions.
The UFC is the biggest fighting promotion in the world – most of the sport’s eyeballs are concentrated on this company, and as a result, there is a sort of exclusivity that comes with it. As such, the UFC hasn’t yet done its own version of an MMA crossover event, possibly due to not finding the appropriate value to execute such an ambitious project.
The only crossover event in which the UFC has partook was the Conor McGregor vs Floyd Mayweather boxing PPV. And just to cap off the craze it generated; the bout brought in a reported $4.3 million PPV buys – rendering it the second highest-selling boxing fight of all time!
If that kind of hype and numbers could be generated for an event, the UFC would certainly find a way to actualize what the fans want to see. The reality, however, is that MMA is a growing sport and it needs time before it can put up those figures.
“You are the f*ckin’ man…” – Fight fans show their enthusiasm for the Rizin-Bellator crossover event under Scott Coker’s post
Given the highly ambitious nature of the event, fight fans took to Twitter to thank and congratulate the two promotions (and Scott Coker, in particular) for putting up the show, which will take place on New Year’s Eve.
Some of the most notable tweets are posted below.
The PPV will have major implications for the featherweight, and lightweight divisions of both the promotions; and might act as a precedent for crossover events going forward.
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Udayan Mukherjee
(382 Articles Published)