Matching up the UFC versus Bellator

Earlier this week, Bleacher Report put out a story of “dream” match ups between Bellator and the UFC. Let me say two things. First of all, it was not a really deep story at all. Two, can you really have a dream match up at all with a company (Bellator) where Joey Beltran is challenging for the company’s Light Heavyweight title and there will soon be a show headlined by a Tito Ortiz/Stephan Bonnar fight?

And the biggest “dream” with Bellator fighters is seeing Eddie Alvarez against UFC lightweights and that is already coming to fruition.

But it did enough to prompt me to think, if I could make any fights with Bellator guys against UFC guys, what would they be? They many not be super fights or dream fights, but fights I would like to see none-the-less. And I will point out, with the exception of one; you will not see UFC champions on this fake card despite almost every Bellator champion being listed. Why? Because Bellator champions can’t hang with UFC Champions. Period.

THE UNDERCARD

Middleweight

Thales Leites versus Kendall Grove

I will admit, this one is a little personal due to my fandom of Kendall Grove and firm belief that he should have another shot in the UFC. Since he left the UFC, he’s been up and down just like he was in the UFC, but has also beaten a few guys currently under UFC contract (i.e. Derek Brunson and Joe Riggs). Leites is a rising fighter again in the UFC and as I see Grove as an 11-15 ranked UFC fighter if he was there (probably never better and never worse), it would be a good match up for them both.

Winner: Kendall Grove by Unanimous Decision

Welterweight

Kelvin Gastelum versus Na Shon Burrell

Burrell is coming off a nasty loss, but this is a match up that would be interesting for him. Gastelum is the Burrell opposite. He is the clean cut, quiet predator and Burrell is the loud, anti-authority type. But they would wage an epic war no matter where the fight took place.

Winner: Kelvin Gastelum by 2^nd Round Submission

Featherweight

Conor McGregor versus Bubba Jenkins

What we have yet to see is how a wrestler could slow down the unorthodox style of McGregor. If anyone could throw a wrench into McGregor’s hype train, it is a talent like Jenkins. This could possibly be the fight of the night if this card was real. Striker versus wrestler, yes. But they can both do each thing well too.

Winner: Conor McGregor by Split Decision

Featherweight

Cub Swanson versus Daniel Strauss

Bleacher Report matched Swanson up with Curran for brawl purposes, but I think that Strauss brought out the best in Curran when it comes to going wild. This is an all out slugfest…while it lasts…which won’t be long.

Winner: Daniel Strauss by 1^st Round TKO

Heavyweight

Alistair Overeem versus Bobby Lashley

Look, I get trying to build Lashley up when it comes to promotional purposes. But really, the guy isn’t that good. Throw him in there with another hulking heavyweight and see where he falls. My guess is, if it is anyone any good on the other side, he falls right in the center of the cage very early. Lashley’s best bet would come against a clearly aging and diminishing Overeem. But still, Alistair has a highly sophisticated skill set compared to the pro wrestler and would finish him brutally, even if Lashley’s wrestling prowess can help him survive the opening frame.

Winner: Alistair Overeem by 2^nd Round KO

Featherweight

Frankie Edgar versus Patricio Pitbull

Bellator’s top division is clearly with the featherweights. Sadly for them I don’t think that their champion is the best in the division. I don’t want power on power here, I want mad scrambles. Edgar and Patricio are both highly skilled at getting out of the way. Edgar is so quick on his feet and light and hard to catch up to. He also has lightning fast take downs, but Patricio is so fast, could Edgar catch him?

Winner: Frankie Edgar by Split Decision (but, we all know his luck with these, don’t we?)

THE MAIN CARD

Featherweight

Chad Mendes versus Pat Curran

Pure wrestler versus striker here. Curran is as dangerous as any featherweight that Bellator has but Mendes has only gotten better with time. This would be an intense scramble of a fight.

Winner: Chad Mendes by Unanimous Decision

Lightweight

Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Michael Chandler

Chandler is one of my favorite Bellator fighters to watch because he fights like he is Tom Hardy’s character from Warrior. He is a beast who I would never want to stand and trade with. Khabib has done so, so well but is still such a wild card on how he will match up with the true elite. Chandler, like Alvarez, would be a top 5 lightweight in the UFC, but wouldn’t be able to beat the top few guys. Question is, is Khabib really as high quality of a guy overall as his current UFC ranking suggests?

Winner: Michael Chandler by 3^rd round TKO

Welterweight

Hector Lombard versus Paul Daley

Daley is another guy who deserves another UFC shot (sorry Dana). Yeah, he made a bad decision, but you brought Tito Ortiz, Thiago Silva, etc., etc. Daley would be a heavy hitter throw right into the fire that is the welterweight division. And this showdown would be a slugfest the likes of Daley-Diaz.

Winner: Paul Daley by 2^nd Round TKO

Light Heavyweight

Rashad Evans versus Emanual Newton

This is virtually the same guy fighting himself. A few years back, this is a no-brainer for Evans. He was the better wrestler and the better heavy handed striker, but he has fallen off to the point of almost being Newton’s equal. Then again, Newton may think that wins over King Mo are worth more than they really are and not realize that Evans isn’t just another by the book overhyped Bellator guy.

Winner: Evans by Unanimous Decision

Welterweight

Carlos Condit versus Douglas Lima

The one fight I agree with Bellator on. Lima is a hard nose striker, I would love to see him face Nick or Nate Diaz as well. But with the flux in their weight classes and careers, Condit is the next best thing. The two would wage war and throw enough crazy stuff at each other that it would keep the two of them and all of us guessing along the way. The problem, as Bleacher Report pointed out, is that Lima just isn’t long enough (though I will point out that he has had no problem with long reach from someone like Ben Saunders, which is 6.5 inches longer than Lima).

Winner: Carlos Condit by 2^nd Round KO

THE MAIN EVENT

Bantamweight

TJ Dillashaw versus Joe Warren

That is right, a UFC champion. Why? Because this is the only match up where a Bellator guy has any relevant skill set that could counter the UFC champion in that weight class. Warren is a world class grappler and his wrestling is miles ahead of Dillashaw’s no matter how good Dillashaw’s wrestling is. But what Dillashaw has shown lately, especially against Mike Easton, Renan Barao and Joe Soto, he doesn’t need to lean on his wrestling skills. Warren would take Dillashaw down early and often. But TJ weathers storms and then knocks out the storm maker. It is what he does.

Winner: TJ Dillashaw by 5^th round TKO

Viacom Spits on Mixed Martial Arts (feat. Rampage and Tito)

Griffin-Bonnar. Pure Mixed Martial Arts at it's best? No. But a hell of a lot of fun to watch? You know it.

That is where my love affair with MMA really began. I had seen some here or there growing up, the worlds of Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie, without understanding any of the ins and the outs of what made this sport. And I watched that first season of The Ultimate Fighter, more out of my love of reality television than anything else. There I found myself cheering, more against Josh Koscheck than for anyone specifically. When the finale came, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar took my piqued interest and then made my head explode with their well documented war of attrition.

Two seasons of The Ultimate Fighter and a solid interest later, a coach/competitor trio of Tito Ortiz, Michael Bisping and Kendall Grove solidified MMA as one of my very favorite sports with the best season to date of the show.

That third season was seven years ago. Bisping has gone on to give me 2-3 heart attacks per fight since and I have continued to follow Grove move by move after his up/down UFC career ended.

And Tito Ortiz, the first ACTUAL fighter to enthrall me? He is currently a major player in the bastardizing of the sport he helped me grow to love. Why? No, not just because the aging Ortiz will take on the also aging, completely slower-than-his-prime Rampage Jackson this November. But mostly because last Thursday, on a live episode of TNA Impact Wrestling (yes, that is the “scripted” type of wrestling), Ortiz showed up....likely to begin an on-screen and scripted battle with dual entertainer Jackson, who is already been on Impact regularly now.

For most people, age in this future Bellator MMA pay per view main event is the biggest slap in the forehead factoid. For me, it is merely a turnoff. It isn't 2004 or 2005 or 2006 and nobody cares about Tito Ortiz fighting Rampage Jackson. I have always been a fan of both of them as fighters, but I also don't want to see Karl Malone go one-on-one with Scottie Pippen in 2013. It is going lack athleticism, they will either not engage or it will be the sloppiest fight ever, and they will both be gassed by the second round because you can't get your cardio very high when you are on the geriatric end of your professional sports career, regardless of the sport.

So forget a slap in the forehead. Age isn't the most disrespectful thing in play with this fight.

What is disrespectful is how Bjorn Rebney and the geniuses at Viacom have blurred the lines of this legitimate sport (growing and gaining more general appeal daily) and the male soap opera circus that is professional wrestling.

People, including Ortiz and Jackson, are often so critical of Dana White for a variety of reasons. But never has he really put the integrity of the sport in such limbo. With the possible exception of hiring Brock Lesnar after only one MMA fight, Dana is careful about who he brings in to fight in the UFC, what those people do while they are there and how they behave. He brought in James Toney, only to prove a point. But other than that, he has avoided making his brand and the sport a circus by avoiding pitfalls of “fighters” like wrestlers Dave Bautista and Bobby Lashley, an interested Shaquille O'Neal, an aged NFL-veteran in Herschel Walker and even (for the most part) the “hot-commodity” backyard brawler Kimbo Slice.

By not only allowing, but supporting and full-on promoting his fighters as professional wrestlers, Bjorn Rebney has not just blurred the line here, he has stomped and danced all over it.

I like professional wrestling to a degree. I have watched it since I was a little kid and still watch it on and off to this very day. But a bleach blonde surfer Sting to a reptilian-like Randy Orton don't match up in actual man-to-man combat with GSP or Jon Jones. I won't disrespect professional wrestlers by saying they aren't athletes. They are. But they are entertainers who are athletic, even if it is to a high degree. Professional wrestlers to mixed martial artists is like the cast of Coach Carter to the NBA.

Professional wrestling is fiction; it is Lost, it is Law and Order, it is General Hospital. And that is OK Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz wanting to participate in this medium is also OK It is no different than when Jackson portrayed B.A. Baracus in the A-Team movie.

But how any person can think it OK for them both to portray their professional wrestling characters building up for a fight AT THE SAME TIME they are building up for an actual fight, is completely ridiculous and I for one, as a MMA fan, am disgusted by it. And I'd love to blame Viacom. Look back at their history, they aren't very bright in general. And that is where Bellator's front man Bjorn Rebney, needs to put on his big boy pants and tell someone no.

But instead, he is locked up in a desperate attempt to make money, that he not only ignores that fact that his first pay per view will be headlined by two guys who haven't won a fight since Ortiz upset Ryan Bader TWO YEARS AGO. Two guys, who in fact, have gone 9-12-1 since Ortiz first captured my attention the aforementioned seven years ago. By the way, seven of those wins are Rampage's and he shouldn't have won his last two fights, boring decisions over Matt Hamill (Ortiz lost to him by the way) and Lyoto Machida (the king of losing questionable decisions). I don't expect Rebney to accept a fact that we all, outside of Bellator, know: sooner or later, Bellator will be Affliction, it will be Elite XC, it will be Strikeforce. This is reality and I know that. And I don't believe that Rebney should buy into that because when he actually does, will be the final straw in a demise that is likely in the grand scheme.

So go Bjorn Rebney and make money. But DO NOT disrespect a sport that you didn't even help build by blurring the lines and giving all of the MMA detractors more fodder by making it look like your professional fighting organization is fixed, whether that is really the case or not.

There are plenty of guilty parties involved, but in the end, Rebney, Ortiz and Jackson should know better. But because of their foolish attempts to make money and remain relevant, they are bastardizing and making a joke out of a sport that I, and millions of others, have grown to love. As much as Mixed Martial Arts has become the fastest growing sport across the globe in the last ten years, more stunts like this will force this beautiful sport to halt it's growth and make those detractors grow while supporters shrink. It is sad and it is going to affect everyone from War Machine and Ben Askren on Spike to Chael Sonnen and Junior Dos Santos on FOX, to the guys fighting down the road every third Saturday night, trying to feed their kids.

Seven years ago, Tito Ortiz found two other guys for his team that helped make me really love MMA. Today, he and two other “teammates” have found a way to make me question what the future of this sport will hold if they have their selfish ways. And it makes me sick