MMA ORGANIZATION: BELLATOR

NAME: BELLATOR

FOUNDER: BJORN REBNEY

FOUNDED: 2008 [MMA]

HQ: NEWPORT BEACH, CA

PARENT COMPANY: VIACOM

WEBSITE: WWW.BELLATOR.COM

HISTORY:

Bellator is the largest tournament-based MMA organization in the world. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, the company was formed in 2008 by Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney. Bellator’s events are primarily structured around tournaments. The tournament winner is declared the number one contender in their respective weight class, and is awarded a check for $100,000 and a shot at the reigning Bellator champion.

Its live events and competitions have been shown internationally on TV Esporte Interativo, Space! Brazil and TruTV Brazil in Brazil, and recently on Viva (UK and Ireland) in the United Kingdom.

The organization has held eight seasons of tournaments the first being in April of 2009 and the latest one in January 2013. The organization has both male and female fighters. The men compete in Bantam (135 lbs), Feather (145 lbs), Light (155 lbs), Welter (170 lbs), Middle (185 lbs), Lightheavy (205 lbs), and Heavyweight Divisions (265 lbs). Women compete in 115 pounds, 125 pounds, 135 pounds, and 145 pounds divisions. Some rules of the tournament are slightly different to those of a non-tournament fight. Elbow strikes are illegal in the quarterfinal and semifinal tournament bouts due to the high probability of a cut occurring. Elbow strikes are legal in the finals. Though the final bout is a tournament championship, it is still three five-minute rounds since it is not a title fight.

The current rules for Bellator Fighting Championships were originally established by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board. The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts that New Jersey established has been adopted in other states that regulate mixed martial arts, including Nevada, Louisiana, and California, and are the same as used by other mixed martial arts promotions in North America. Bellator’s rounds vary in length depending on whether a match is a championship fight or a non-championship fight. Championship fights are scheduled for five rounds while non-championship fights are scheduled for three rounds. All rounds are five minutes in length with a one minute rest period between rounds.

(SOURCE: WIKI)

MMA ORGANIZATION: PRIDE F/C

NAME: PRIDE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS

FOUNDER: …..

FOUNDED: 1997 [MMA]

HQ: TOKYO, JAPAN

PARENT COMPANY: ZUFFA LLC

WEBSITE: WWW.PRIDEFC.COM

HISTORY:

PRIDE Fighting Championships (PRIDE or Pride FC, founded as KRS-PRIDE) was a Japanese mixed martial arts (MMA) organization. Its inaugural event was held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997. Pride held more than sixty mixed martial arts events, broadcast to about 40 countries worldwide. Pride held the largest live MMA event audience record of over 70,000 people at the Pride and K-1 co-production, Shockwave/Dynamite, held in August 2002, as well as the audience record of over 67,450 people at the PRIDE Final Conflict 2003.

In March 2007, Dream Stage Entertainment (DSE) sold Pride to Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, co-owners of Zuffa, which owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). While remaining as legally separate entities with separate managements, the two promotions were set to cooperate in a manner akin to the AFL-NFL merger. However, such an arrangement did not materialize, and in October 2007, Pride Worldwide’s Japanese staff was laid off, marking the end of the organization as an active fight promoter. As a result, many of the Pride staff left to form a new organization alongside K-1 parent company Fighting and Entertainment Group. That new organization, founded in February 2008, was named Dream.

Pride Fighting Championships only has four weight classes within the organization and is less focused on fighter’s weight than many western MMA organizations. The weight classes start at lightweight (161 lbs), welterweight (183 lbs), middleweight (205 lbs), and heavyweight (205+ lbs). The rules of the ring differ from those inside the octagon. Fighters within Pride fight in a traditional style Boxing or Muay Thai ring. Some moves which are banded in western MMA organizations and by the Mixed Martial Arts Unified Rules of Combat, as introduced by the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, and adopted by the Nevada State Athletic Commission are allowed and practiced by fighters in Pride. Some of these moves include pile driving or spiking an opponent, kicking, kneeing, and stomping the head of a downed opponent. Although elbowing to the head or face is illegal within Pride regulation. Fight rounds in Pride are ten minutes instead of five minutes, with a resting period of two minutes between rounds. Some notable former champions of Pride include Mark Coleman, Wanderlei Silva, Fedor Emelianenko, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, and Dan Henderson.

(SOURCE: WIKI)

MMA ORGANIZATIONS: UFC

NAME: ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP

FOUNDER: ART DAVIE, RORION GRACIE, BOB MEYROWITZ

FOUNDED: 1993 [MMA]

HQ: LAS VEGAS, NV

PARENT COMPANY: ZUFFA LLC

WEBSITE: WWW.UFC.COM

HISTORY:

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world, which hosts most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport  and produces events worldwide. Based in the United States, the UFC has eight weight divisions and enforces the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC while Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta control the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, LLC.

The first UFC event was held in 1993 in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the event was to identify the most effective martial art in a real fight between competitors of different fighting disciplines, including boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, wrestling, Muay Thai, Karate, Jujutsu, and other styles. In subsequent competitions, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an entirely separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.

Controversy due to lack of fighter safety regulations in the early days of the UFC when their slogan was, “There Are No Rules!”, caught the eye of Senator John McCain who went on a personal quest to dismantle the UFC organization sending letters to all governors of the fifty U.S. states urging them to ban the sport. MMA in the early days was a lot more brutal than the MMA of today. John McCain referred to the spectacle as, “human cock-fighting”, and on the eve of UFC 12 New York state enforced it’s regulations against “no-hold-barred ” fighting and forced the event to be relocated at the last minute.

Some milestones in UFC reform on in it’s struggle to be sanctioned included the introduction of weight-classes and elimination of “fish-hooking” in UFC 12, in UFC 14 fighters were forced to wear gloves and kicks to the head of downed opponents was banned. In UFC 15 strikes to the back of the head, hair pulling, and groin strikes, small joint manipulation, and head butting became illegal. UFC 21 saw the integration of the five minute rounds.

After a long and dragged out sanctioning battle, SEG the group who at the time owned the UFC was close to the end, staring bankruptcy in the face. In 2001 casino moguls, the Fertitta brothers along with business partner Dana White bought the rights to the UFC for two million dollars.

With a cable-television deal and expansion into Canada, Europe, Australia the Middle East, Asia and new markets within the United States, the UFC as of 2011 has gained in popularity, along with greater mainstream-media coverage. As of 2001 viewers can access UFC programming on pay-per-view television in the U.S., Brazil, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Italy. UFC programming can also be found on FX, Fuel TV, and Fox in the U.S., on ESPN in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as in 150 countries and 22 different languages worldwide. UFC programming is shown in 130 countries worldwide, and the UFC plans to continue expanding internationally, running shows regularly in Canada and the U.K., with an office established in the U.K. aimed to expand the European audience. UFC has also held events in Brazil, Germany, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, while Afghanistan, Mexico and the Philippines are candidates for future events.

The UFC has also bought and absorbed rival promotions Pride, World Extreme Cagefighting and Strikeforce. Under to direction of present day UFC president Dana White the sport of MMA has exploded into mainstream America and been legitimized as a true sport by media giants such as FOX who currently has a firm grip on America’s most televised and followed sport, NFL Football. Due to Dana White who president of the UFC in 2001 and the new rules and safety regulations as well as fighter weight-classes, the UFC has come from the pits of bankruptcy to multi-million dollar per event enterprise [UFC 129 broke records at $11 million dollars for the Georges St Pierre Vs Jake Shields fight.]

(SOURCE: WIKI)

MMA ORGANIZATIONS: STRIKEFORCE

NAME: STRIKEFORCE

FOUNDER: SCOTT COKER

FOUNDED: 1985 [KICKBOXING], 2006 [MMA]

HQ: SAN JOSE, CA

PARENT COMPANY: ZUFFA LLC

WEBSITE: WWW.STRIKEFORCE.COM

HISTORY:

Founded as a kickboxing organization, Strikeforce later became the number-two mixed martial arts promotion in the world. Its first MMA event, Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie, was held on March 10, 2006, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. The event was California’s first regulated MMA event and broke the previous record for largest audience at a MMA event in North America, with its 18,265 in attendance. The record was since broken by UFC 129.

In February 2008, Strikeforce held its first event outside California with Strikeforce: At The Dome at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington. Starting in 2009, most Strikeforce events were held in other states (15 in total), including 5 events in Las Vegas, Nevada from 2011-2012.

In March 2008, Strikeforce partnered with NBC to broadcast weekly highlight and fighter-profile series, Strikeforce on NBC from April 12. In February 2009, Strikeforce purchased several assets, including a video library and several fighter-contracts, including Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith from ProElite, owner of the defunct EliteXC promotion. Days later it also announced it had agreed to a three-year broadcast deal with Showtime for up to 16 events per year, as well as a deal with CBS for an option to produce up to four events for them. In addition to Strikeforce’s primary events being broadcast on Showtime, it also announced it would produce ShoMMA: Strikeforce Challengers, an event-series similar to ShoXC and ShoBox, where they would highlight up-and-coming fighters.

During August 2009, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced that they had signed formal alliances with Japanese MMA-promotion Dream and Russian promotion M-1 Global. Coker said the partnership would allow for co-promotion and fighter exchanges for events both in the US and Japan to creating the best match ups possible that would not have existed before. As a result, Dream fighters such as Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Sergei Kharitonov, Melvin Manhoef, Jason Miller, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo Souza, Hiroyuki Takaya, andMarius Zaromskis compete for Strikeforce between 2009 & the partnership’s end in 2011.

On August 15, 2009, Strikeforce was available to be viewed online through the Showtime website. For a small cost, an online interactive event named “Strikeforce: All Access” could be streamed simultaneously with the live event, enabling the user multiple camera angles of the fights such as the “cage cam” exclusively offered by Showtime. A small camera was attached to the referee and fans were able to see from their perspective in real time. “Strikeforce: All Access” added other features such as pause and instant replay. This was not the first time Strikeforce events were streamed on the Showtime website but was the first time the live stream was available to audiences and internet users outside the United States.

Strikeforce had major sponsorship deals with Rockstar Energy Drink, Electronic Arts, Bodog, and Full Tilt Poker.

(SOURCE: WIKI)

MMA ORGANIZATIONS: WEC

NAME: WORLD EXTREME CAGEFIGHTING [WEC]

FOUNDER: SCOTT ADAMS & REED HARRIS

FOUNDED: 2001 [MMA]

HQ: LAS VEGAS, NV

PARENT COMPANY: ZUFFA LLC

WEBSITE: WWW.WEC.TV

HISTORY:

WEC or World Extreme Cagefighting was founded by Scott Adams and Reed Harris in 2001. During the organization’s first five years (2001-2006) most of it’s events were held at Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, California, and aired on HDNet.

In December 2006, Zuffa purchased WEC. With the purchase, WEC continued as a separate promotion with its own roster of fighters. Adams was retained after the purchase as the organization’s matchmaker. Harris and Adams were named co-General Managers and were both active in the new WEC. In 2008, Sean Shelby was named the new match-maker for the promotion by Zuffa.

Zuffa implemented several changes to WEC after it’s purchase including; discontinuing it’s pentagonal cage for a modified version of the UFC’s octagon, the championships of fighters who were contracted UFC fighters were vacated, the promotion moved to focus on lighter weight classes (abandoning their heavyweight and super heavyweight divisions and championships), and retaining their bantamweight and featherweight divisions—two divisions not then present in the UFC. After the purchase, several WEC events were held in Zuffa’s hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, much like the UFC.

WEC aired their events live on Versus (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network and now as the NBC Sports Network) in the United States and on TSN (and later The Score) in Canada. WEC’s first live event was broadcast on June 3, 2007 on Versus from The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Todd Harris was the play by play announcer on every televised WEC event on Versus, and was joined by former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir on color commentary until the spring of 2010, when Mir was replaced by UFC light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar. Fellow Zuffa fighters Kenny Florian & Jens Pulver have also filled in on color commentary due to Mir or Bonnar’s absences. UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan called WEC’s only pay-per-view event, WEC 48 in April 2010. Postfight interviews on the Versus-televised cards were typically done by either Harris or Versus sportscaster Craig Hummer.

Joe Martinez served as the announcer for Zuffa-promoted WEC events until April 2010, when he left the organization and was replaced by UFC announcer Bruce Buffer. However, Martinez made a one-off return at WEC 52 that November when Buffer was overseas for a UFC event.

WEC announced that it would dissolve their light heavyweight and middleweight divisions after their December 3, 2008 event to further their concentration on lighter classes. Fighters from the light heavyweight and middleweight divisions started fighting in the UFC after the dissolution of their divisions.^[4] Also, on February 3, 2009, WEC officially announced the creation of a 125 lb. flyweight division and the dissolution of its welterweight division (flyweight would have been the last division under the “Unified Rules of MMA” to be activated under Zuffa, excluding Super Heavyweight). Fighters from the welterweight division started fighting in the UFC after the dissolution of their division. The only weight class that still crossed over between WEC and the UFC prior to the merger was the 155 lb lightweight division.

On January 8, 2010, World Extreme Cagefighting announced that AMP Energy would be the official energy drink of WEC. Amp Energy also sponsored three of WEC’s top stars -featherweight Urijah Faber, featherweight Chad Mendes, and bantamweight Joseph Benavidez.

WEC 48 was the organization’s only PPV event in it’s history which headlined WEC Featherweight Champion José Aldo defending his title against challenger & former champion Urijah Faber ( April 24, 2010.) 

On October 28, 2010, UFC President Dana White announced that WEC would merge with the UFC. (SOURCE: WIKI)