Bellator 97: Askren vs Koreshkov - July 31 (Official Discussion)

wekka wrote:What a card. Shame we can't see Baca/Leone, regardless of Baca being a natural flyweight.

 Yes the cards get better when they don´t have one every week. 2 per month would be optimal imo.

TehPackage wrote:

CDF47 wrote:

TehPackage wrote:

CDF47 wrote:

wekka wrote:This is probably the most stacked card Bellator has had since the Alvarez/Aoki II card.

This is one of their best.  They need to go back to Thurs. nights though, after TNA, to get their ratings back up.  This card shouldn't be missed.

Whats the reason for switching back to FRiday? This is a big mistake imo.

Not sure why they are doing that but I agree, moving to Fridays is a big mistake.  Friday nights for this demographic is one of the worst for ratings.

A few weeks back Spike TV executive Kevin Kay said they weren’t sure which night of the week the Bellator cards would be on Spike, but to check back because they were deciding soon. As it turns out, Bellator is headed back to Friday nights. Bellator had a brief run on Friday nights when they were on MTV and the numbers rarely cracked 200k, but according to Kay the MTV numbers don’t really apply. Kay says it all came down to a process of elimination as they didn’t want to go up against the UFC on Wednesday nights or the NFL on Thursday nights.

Kay told Sports Illustrated:

“I don’t want to see Bellator going head to head with the UFC. I don’t think that makes any sense for fans. No matter who would win in that scenario, you don’t want to not give the fans the choice to watch both.”

“The Ultimate Fighter on Fridays was doing over a million viewers a week. I’ll take that, and with live fights, I think we’ll do even better. There’s a lot of young men at home across [the] 18-49 [age demographic]. Gold Rush on Discovery does 4 million viewers on Friday nights. [The viewers] are there. You just have to give them the right thing and I think live fights on Friday, without competition, is going to be the best place for Bellator.”
http://www.fighters.com/06/11/bellator-headed-back-to-friday-nights

 I hope so.  Would love to see them get great ratings on Friday nights.  I think the TNA lead in was really helping them out though on Thursdays.  They got some solid ratings there.

One of the best Bellator cards ever.  This and Aoki/Eddie are the best Bellator cards they ever put on.

Bellator needs to do KSW style promos to get some hype for the upcoming cards. I always have a hard time finding official promos for their events.

PRIDE FC wrote:Bellator needs to do KSW style promos to get some hype for the upcoming cards. I always have a hard time finding official promos for their events.

 Yeah I agree.  They should be promoting the hell out of this card.

thank god....emerson is out of his main card fight...

http://www.bellator.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23600&ATCLID=207771161

After nearly three years away from the promotion, featherweight Jared Downing (9-2 MMA, 2-0 BFC) returns to the Bellator MMA cage to face Patricio "Pitbull" Freire (17-2 MMA, 5-2 BFC) at Bellator 97.

Bellator officials recently announced the switch, which sees Downing step in for an injured Rob Emerson.

Bellator 97 takes place July 31 at Albuquerque's Santa Ana Center. The evening's five-fight main card, which includes the new Downing vs. Freire bout, airs on Spike TV. The preliminary card streams on Spike.com.

"It takes a ton of heart to accept a fight less than 20 days out, especially when you have to step in the cage with one of the most dangerous men in the world in 'Pitbull,'" Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney stated. "Jared is a guy we've had our eye on for a while, and win or lose, he'll make a great addition to our featherweight ranks."

Two of Downing's first five professional fights took place in the Bellator cage, where "Demon Eyes" earned wins over Danny Tims and Chad Vandenberg. Most recently, he completed a four-fight stint under the Resurrection Fighting Alliance banner, including a hard-fought split-decision loss to Lance Palmer in June, when he lost that company's featherweight title.

Meanwhile, Freire looks to rebound from a recent split-decision loss to Bellator champ Pat Curran in a failed bid for the title. That and a split-decision loss to former champ Joe Warren remain the only losses of Freire's career.

With the change to the card, the Bellator 97 lineup now includes:

MAIN CARD (Spike TV, 7 p.m. ET)
Champ Michael Chandler vs. David Rickels - for lightweight title
Champ Ben Askren vs. Andrey Koreshkov - for welterweight title
Muhammed Lawal vs. Jacob Noe - Summer Series light-heavyweight tourney final
Ryan Martinez vs. Vitaly Minakov - Summer Series heavyweight tourney final
Jared Downing vs. Patricio Freire
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike.com, 6 p.m. ET)
Will Brooks vs. Cris Leyva
Rodrigo Lima vs. Rafael Silva - bantamweight tournament semifinal
Frank Baca vs. Anthony Leone - bantamweight tournament semifinal
Mike Barreras vs. Bubba Jenkins
Richard Jacquez vs. Javier Palacios
Keith Berry vs. Jeremy Kimball
Felipe Chavez vs. Adrian Cruz
Shawn Bunch vs. Steve Garcia
Donald Sanchez vs. Cliff Wright

This card overall is very solid more ppv worthy then the last couple ufcs for sure.

Can't wait!!!!

Downing is actually a MAJOR improvement over Emerson.

It sucks the best event of the month on the last day of the month.

Koreshkov has to hurt Askren early to be able to win. Hope to see him throw a lot of combos.

Can't wait for this tonight!

KSW wrote:

Nice weigh-in photos, I'm certainly excited for tonight.

What time do the prelims start and where do they air? They don't show up on Spike for me

I thought it started at 7 ET?

And do you know where the prelims will be aired? I can't find them anywhere.

Mikal wrote:What time do the prelims start and where do they air? They don't show up on Spike for me

I hope this works for the prelims

The prelims will start in 13 minutes or so according to my computer clock.

Super pumped up for this card

prelims should be here in a few more minutes

http://www.spike.com/shows/bellator-mma/live

I'm more excited for this than the last 3 UFC cards to be honest.

I'm chilling in chat, prelim stream started.

 

Nice embed Johan  

I made the embedded video bigger to 640W.

Nice GNP finish for Brooks so far.  Silva had good RNC.