Who
is Bellator's 145-pound tournament favorite? | Photo: Keith
Mills/Sherdog.com
Every week inside ESPN.com's MMA section, two scribes debate the
most pressing issues in the sport in the Hot Button.
This week, as Bellator's Summer Series nears its semifinal round,
Sherdog.com Administrative Editor Jordan Breen and
ESPN.com's Josh
Gross debate who deserves to be considered the featherweight
tournament favorite.
Does Pat
Curran's success at 155 pounds make him the odds-on-favorite to
take tournament glory come August, or is Marlon
Sandro's massive one-hit knockout power the gamechanger? What
circumstances will dictate who emerges as a future Bellator title
contender at 145 pounds?
Click here to read the
latest ESPN MMA Hot Button. Read more
If Ryan Seacrest happened to be a major celebrity in Japan, he
would eventually be offered a substantial sum to be beaten severely
in any number of the country’s traditional New Year’s Eve fighting
events. The Japanese watch television in huge numbers that night,
and promotions have hired everyone from actors to pro wrestlers to
fighters dressed in costumes in order to draw attention away from
the standard music and variety programming.
Does it work? For a long time, it did: any combination of Sumo,
Bob
Sapp, or Olympic champions would usually produce tremendous
ratings. But the decline of real fighters and the increasing
reluctance (possibly related to the shrinking pay stubs) of the
“special attractions” has taken its toll.
It’s a real sign of MMA’s erosion in Japan that only one event --
K-1’s Dynamite -- is actually airing New Year’s Eve; the more
serious Sengoku takes place Dec. 30. In both cases, fans can see a
series of competitive fights. But in K-1’s arena, the need for
ratings will prompt the usual stunt work: Shinya Aoki
will be facing Yuichiro
Nagashima in a fight that alternates kickboxing rounds with MMA
rules and Bob Sapp will be
wrestling Sumo great Shinichi
Suzukawa in an orchestrated entertainment-only intermission.
Both are likely to dwarf the night’s most legitimate bout, a
lightweight meeting between Strikeforce’s Josh Thomson
and Tatsuya
Kawajiri.
Stateside, most of the attention has been directed at Todd Duffee
taking a late-notice bout against Alistair
Overeem. Duffee was touted as a UFC prospect before a shock KO
at the hands of Mike Russow;
reported head-butting with UFC management led to his release. But
Duffee can strike, and he’s a few levels above the kind of
competition you’d expect Overeem to accept only three weeks after a
grueling K-1 tournament. Too good to believe, actually. Like most
of the Japanese product, it’s subject to change. Read more
Who is Bellator's 145-pound tournament favorite? | Photo: Keith Mills/Sherdog.com
Kazushi Sakuraba | Daniel Herbertson/Sherdog.com
