Issue 182

September 2019

Are we almost in the era of cross-promotional contests?

Fantasy fights inhabit our imagination like a merry-go-round. Especially in a sport replete with reigning champ-champ kickass kings and queens. In a month when the industry all came together in Las Vegas under the banner of the Fighters Only World Mixed Martial Arts Awards, there is an argument to be made that it is time that we should be pushing for the biggest cross-promotional events in the sport. There are champ-champs around and it would be great to see them fight.

In boxing, it has happened, and in recent times too. Floyd Mayweather against Manny Pacquiao, Lennox Lewis versus Mike Tyson. All grown in rival camps. So why can't MMA do the same? Perhaps it really does come down to the right match-ups, and a guaranteed giant purse.

That is what made Mayweather against Conor McGregor an inevitability in the end in 2017. Hugely flawed, of course, yet perfectly marketed. The toys in the pram, the egos, the different broadcasters – all pushed to one side for one grand event. Perhaps there could be one MMA mega-card on one night? Or perhaps not.

Too much risk for an organization to have two or three of its support champions lose in one night. But just think about the line-ups: Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, the Bellator flyweight champion against Valentina Shevchenko. What a fight that would be. Macfarlane's growing grittiness as a great champion against the sublime skills of Shevchenko. Yes, please. Patricio Pitbull or even Michael Chandler (still) against Khabib Nurmagomedov, Douglas Lima versus Nate Diaz, Henry Cejudo versus Kyoji Horiguchi, or perhaps the biggest one, a real bragging-rights fight, Daniel Cormier against Ryan Bader, both 205 and heavyweight champ-champs, for now.

The thing is these fights have a shelf life, too. We are talking about the best versus the best when they are at their best. Or, at least, when that particular test appears perfect for debate and anticipation.

“No one’s doing this. If the UFC wanted to do it, I’d put my boys in, in a second," Bellator president Scott Coker admitted to me recently. "Ryan Bader against Daniel Cormier? That fight has never happened. Win, lose or draw, I would do it.”

Of course, there is the one caveat. It is not the business model of the UFC. Yet if enough money could be made from the one event, perhaps they would go for it.

In conversation with Ryan Bader recently, he certainly seemed up for it. He was scheduled to fight Cormier during his time in the UFC, but it bottomed out. "I’m happy here (at Bellator)," Bader told me, "but if there’s some sort of cross-promotion thing and it eventually got done, it would be pretty amazing. He’s definitely one of the best 205ers out there and the double champ." Making it happen, though, would take a monumental desire to create, momentarily, a genuine 'undisputed' champion.

"That fight makes sense, theoretically, but it’s a whole thing in itself," says Bader, rightly. "Eventually, I think it could happen. But right now I know the UFC aren’t looking to do stuff with anyone else. Rightfully so, it’s their business. I do think at one point in the future we’ll be able to see some cross promotion.

At the end of the day, money’s money. If it's a fight everyone wants to see and it makes sense for both promotions, then why not? Look at Mayweather-McGregor, no one thought that would get done. But at the end of the day it made financial sense for everybody. This is a business. If you can get it done without sacrificing anything with your business, then why not?”

Why not, indeed? Just wish those heads could start banging together on that merry-go-round.