Bellator-Spike TV Full story

Spike TV and Bellator confirmed on 12/11 what had long been expected, that the promotion would be debuting in early 2013 in a Thursday at 10 p.m. time slot. They announced two championship matches and the Bellator debut of Renato "Babalu" Sobral as the key components of the debut show on 1/17, one week later than originally expected.

The show, from the Bren Events Center in Irvine, CA, will open with a featherweight title fight with Pat Curran defending against Patricio "Pitbull" Freire. The main event on the show will have lightweight champion Michael Chandler defending his championship against 2004 U.S. judo Olympian Rick Hawn.

The original plan was to have fans do an on-line vote, based on an on-line reality show, for the fight that kicks off the debut broadcast at 10 p.m. Fans voted for Paul Daley vs. War Machine (the former Jon Koppenhaver) in a welterweight tournament bout, but just before that was to be announced, War Machine broke his tibia and tore his ACL in training while defending a takedown. Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said they wanted to open spectacularly so made the decision to put a world title match in the cage at 10 p.m.

Also announced for the first show is a first round light heavyweight tournament match, featuring Sobral. Sobral, former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion who once headlined a UFC pay-per-view event challenging Chuck Liddell for the championship, faces 2008 world Sambo champion, Russian submission expert, Mikhail Zayats. Other names mentioned as appearing on that show as part of the light heavyweight tournament are former UFC fighters Seth Petruzelli, best known for beating Kimbo Slice on CBS TV, and Jason Lambert.

The first season will be 12 weeks long with live programming airing immediately after TNA Impact, giving the station in excess of four straight hours of live combat sports and entertainment. The strategy is identical to that when Spike in 2005 launched the UFC brand, putting the Ultimate Fighter on directly after WWE Raw when it was Spike's most popular show.

"It's the right time slot," said Spike TV President Kevin Kay. "When we launched the other promotion, it was around WWE using the wrestling lead in."

Kay said he wasn't concerned that in most weeks, the main event wouldn't be starting until near midnight on a work night.

"I don't have a lot of concern about it," he said. "One of the things about Spike is guys tend to get the remote at 10 p.m., and that's proven to be very successful for us. A two hour movie runs well for us at 10 p.m. With world title fights and tournament championships, guys will stay."

But if they don't, Spike will also be airing the shows multiple times each week, including in prime time.

"We're in the Bellator business for the long haul," said Kay. "It probably will be rebroadcast on Fridays, Saturdays, if the fights are great, we'll rebroadcast them every night of the week."

Rebney said the first season would include five tournaments, at featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight. He also confirmed that later this year they would run a women's tournament at 125 pounds.

Spike will also be airing companion programming for the live events. A reality show concept is being worked on, although at this point there was no announcement as to when the show would debut or what format it would take.

Kay also mentioned a new program,"Bellator 360," a show that would feature tapes of previously aired fights featuring the fighters that are currently being featured on the live shows, basically a newly named version of UFC Unleashed that aired on the station for years. It’s going to be very difficult to get ratings for that show, because there is so much first-run UFC on television that I can’t see much of an audience for taped highlight shows of a “B” brand promotion. He also confirmed there would likely be a Countdown type show before the first show airs.

The station will also be airing a King Mo Lawal (8-1, 1 no contest) television special, that will debut on 1/17 after the live show ends, and later be replayed in prime time several times during the week building to Lawal's debut, which will be on the 1/24 live show as part of the light heavyweight tournament that includes Sobral, Petruzelli and Lambert. The Lawal debut will be a joint promotion by both Bellator and TNA,

MMA Uncensored, which aired on Thursdays at 11 p.m., will be moved to a new night.

The second live show, on 1/24, will be from the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla., on the Texas/Oklahoma border. Lawal grew up in Texas, and was an All-American wrestler at Oklahoma State.

That show will be headlined by welterweight champion Ben Askren, one of the best American collegiate wrestlers of all-time, defending his title against Karl Amoussou. It will also feature welterweight tournament competitors Douglas Lima and Ben Saunders.

Rebney also said that bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas would likely defend his title against Marcos Galvao during the season.

Another fight announced for the new season would be the finals of the current season's featherweight tournament, with Shahbulat Shamhalaev vs. Rad Martinez.

The two were scheduled to fight in the main event on 12/7 in Atlantic City, but the New Jersey Athletic Control Board nixed the fight shortly before they were to go into the cage due to Shamhalaev throwing up a few times due to food poisoning.

Rebney announced on the broadcast that the match would take place on 12/14, on Bellator's final event on MTV 2 from Hammond, Ind., but has since confirmed that due to Martinez having to take care of his paraplegic father this week, it would be impossible for him to fight this week and the match would be held early in the 2013 season.