Bellator has put on some pretty exciting cards during season 11, but Friday night’s Bellator 129 card isn’t one of them.
One of UFC President Dana White’s favorite things to say is to never judge a card before it actually happens, but with Bellator 129, I’m going to break White’s rule and say it right now – this card is awful, and Bellator has hit a new low this season by holding it. In fact, I’d argue that on paper Bellator 129 is one of the worst cards top-to-bottom the promotion has ever held in its five years of existence.
The main event of the card, a welterweight bout between Josh Neer and Paul Bradley, is not intriguing whatsoever. I do like Neer and think he’s quietly been of the most exciting 170-pounders in MMA for a long time, but he belongs nowhere near a main event in 2014, especially in the second biggest MMA promotion in the world. As for Bradley, although he is a very good wrestler, he is not very exciting and really hasn’t done anything to earn a main event slot.
Yes, the event takes place in Iowa, where Neer and Bradley are both from, so I expect the promotion to do a decent gate. But Bellator isn’t a local product, it’s a nationally-televised show, and for the fans watching on Spike TV, I’m sure they expect a little better than a Neer vs. Bradley main event.
• Houston Alexander vs. Virgil Zwicker
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As for the co-main event, well, let’s just say it’s not much better than the main event. It was originally set to be James Thompson vs. Houston Alexander in a heavyweight bout (which sounds like it should have been a Spike fight back in 2010), but Thompson pulled out, and now Alexander faces Virgil Swicker. Again, not a good fight, and to be frank it’s kind of an embarrassing co-main event.
As for the other two main event fights, they feature James Terry vs. Andre Santos and Joe Vedepo vs. Davin Clark, neither of which should be on the main card of any MMA promotion’s events in 2014. All told, the four main card fights make for an incredibly mediocre night of fights, at least on paper.
Bellator’s hardcore fans may find some way to defend this card, and I’d love to hear their arguments, because this card is just not good at all, and anyone who is a neutral observer of the sport can see that.
When Scott Coker took over as Bellator president, one of the first things he said he would do was cut down on the number of events per season, and because of that he would pare down the roster. The thing that Coker did wrong was that he should have waited until season 12 to cut down the roster, because season 11’s dates were already booked prior to his hiring, meaning he still had a number of cards to fill. Instead, he trimmed the roster before the season started, cutting fighters such as Desmond Green, Shahbulat Shamhalaev, and Attila Vegh.
Although Green, Shamhalaev, and Vegh aren’t great fighters, all of them are more relevant than any fighter on the Bellator 129 card, and had Bellator not cut them, they could have helped with this card’s depth. But for some reason Coker was in a rush to get rid of a bunch of his fighters, and Bellator 129 is what happens when you have a roster that can’t support a high volume of events.
Things should get better for Bellator next year, but thus far I have not been a huge fan of the way Coker has run the promotion, and I’m hoping that 2015 is better, because so far, I haven’t been impressed.
• Paul Bradley vs. Josh Neer
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Bellator 129 takes place on October 17, 2014 at Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Click the stars to rate how good you think Bellator 129 will be.
