It was revealed today by Spike TV president Kevin Ka that Bellator is going to move back to Friday nights for its upcoming season, which commences this September. The news, which was broke by Loretta Hunt of SportsIllustrated.com, is very disappointing for most mixed martial arts fans out there as it means a series of Friday nights this fall where the choice will be to either stay in and watch Bellator or go out and have fun with friends as the events are scheduled to air from 9 to 11pm EST. Spike said the decision of what day of the week to move the next season of Bellator to came down to Wednesday or Friday. But because the UFC is holding a series of fight cards on Wednesday nights this fall, Bellator made the decision not to go head-to-head and is instead moving to Friday nights. It’s a bad move in my opinion, a very bad move, and it doesn’t help Bellator gain any new fans. Bellator rationalized that because “The Ultimate Fighter” season 16 did decent ratings on Friday nights that Bellator should also be able to pull in decent numbers but the difference is the UFC brand is way bigger than Bellator and while some people were willing to stay in on Friday nights to watch TUF, not as many will do the same with Bellator. Friday night is often referred to as a graveyard for television shows as not many people stay in on Friday nights — especially not the age 18-49 demographic that Bellator is looking to pull in — and I can’t see Bellator’s ratings increasing at all from what the promotion pulled in last season on Thursday nights; instead, I see Bellator doing very poorly this season as far as ratings go and after all of the other bad karma surrounding the promotion as of late, this move to Friday nights could actually turn out disastrous and end up really hurting the Bellator brand. We’ll see how the ratings go next season but I’m guessing they will be very poor. Bigfoot Open To Drop To 205 To Fight Thiago Silva It’s possible the UFC sees a battle of the Silvas in the future as Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva — who recently called out Thiago Silva — said in an interview with Globo that he is going to consult with doctors to see if he can safely make the UFC light heavyweight limit of 205 pounds. This is crazy talk, in my opinion, as “Bigfoot” used to be a super heavyweight and actually has to cut weight in order to make the heavyweight max limit of 265 pounds. Although it’s theoretically possible “Bigfoot” could starve himself, lose muscle and cut a ton of water weight out and make 205 pounds, he would be extremely frail at the weight and I think it’s a horrible idea for him to even consider. If the UFC wants to book this fight, they should do so at heavyweight or at a catchweight of some sort — maybe 230 pounds. Otherwise, this fight is just silliness and I’d rather both guys focus their attention on fighters within their own divisions. Munoz Was Up To 260 Pounds UFC middleweight Mark Munoz, who takes on Tim Boetsch in an important divisional fight at UFC 162, said in a video blog that he got all the way up to 260 pounds during his time away from the ring and while he currently weights 212 pounds, he still needs to get down to 185 in time for the fight on July 6. Munoz is a very good fighter but I don’t like how much weight he put on during his year-long layoff and although I thought he had a good chance of outwrestling Boetsch, I actually lean towards Boetsch moreso now just because of the conditioning aspect. Munoz showed up out of shape against Chris Weidman at UFC on FUEL TV 4 and was brutally knocked out so I don’t understand why he let himself go during his time off when he should have instead been really honing in on his conditioning during his time off. Expect Munoz vs. Boetsch to open around a Pick ’em, and if that’s the case I’ll probably be looking to make a bet on Boetsch.
