Some very disappointing news for fans of Bellator this morning as the promotion has announced that Joe Riggs is injured and out of the Fight Master Finale against Mike Bronzoulis and the fight has been postponed indefinitely. The news, which Bellator PR confirmed, was relayed by Loretta Hunt of SI.com. According to the story, Riggs injured his eye blocking a head kick thrown by a sparring partner three weeks ago. Apparently the sparring partner’s toe went through the head gear and Riggs partially broke his orbital bone as well as suffered a detached retina. Riggs had successful surgery, but because this injury happened so recently he won’t be able to fight Bronzoulis and instead of getting an injury replacement, Bellator has decided to reschedule the fight to a later date. Bellator didn’t give an exact time frame for the re-booked bout but they did say it will happen before the end of season nine. OK, here’s my thoughts on the situation, and I won’t lie, I’m not happy about this. If Riggs was injured three weeks ago, it makes no sense for Bellator to have waited so long to announce publicly that his fight was scratched, other than waiting until the very last second so they could sell as many tickets to this Saturday’s card, and if that’s the case that’s a very grimy move pulled by the organization, but not all that surprising considering some of the stories that we have heard about the promotion as of late. Seriously, if Riggs hurt his eye and the damage was as bad as he said it was, then Bellator should have known right away that he wasn’t going to be able to fight three weeks later and they should have pulled the fight off the card immediately, not waiting until just four days before to do so. (Update: As reporter Jason Floyd pointed out, the promotion couldn’t announce the injury while the show was still going on, but the show ended August 29 and today is September 3, so I don’t know if that argument holds up.) If Bellator goes and puts Riggs on their PPV card to stack it even more, the fans will think it’s fishy, and I can’t blame them if that’s the case. Even before this piece of news, though, I’m not really sure what to think of Bellator anymore. For their first few seasons, they provided nothing but great action from a number of fighters many of us had never heard of before, and they were a great alternative to the UFC. But since Viacom/Spike has taken over things just haven’t been the same and I believe the promotion has taken 10 steps backwards. I really hope that Bellator can turn things around because it’s nice to have a competitor to the UFC, but honestly, I’m not so sure anymore if they can.
