[58thecat]

Tournament format Edit

In the past, Bellator has sporadically featured tournaments, unlike several other MMA promotions. However, in 2015, Bellator President Scott Coker made the decision to drop the 8-man tournament format in favor of smaller tournaments.[3]

Bellator included weight classes from bantamweight (135 pounds) through heavyweight (265 pounds) and tournaments in each weight class were conducted over a three-month period. Each tournament began with the opening round featuring eight fighters in that respective weight class, moved onto the semi-finals and then the finals. For four-man tournaments, only the semi-finals and finals were included. Each tournament was single elimination and there was a one-month break between opening round, semi-finals and finals.

During the tournament, the rules were slightly different from those of a non-tournament fight. Elbow strikes were illegal in the quarterfinal and semifinal tournament bouts due to the high probability of a cut occurring. Elbow strikes were legal in the finals. The tournament final was still three five-minute rounds, since it was not a title fight.

Bellator partnered with Rizin Fighting Federation for the RIZIN FIGHTING WORLD GRAND-PRIX event held on December 29 and 31 2015, sharing King Mo Lawal for the Rizin FF Tournament. The former Pride FC Heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko headlined the NYE Rizin FF main event.[4][5]

Bellator does not run regularly scheduled tournaments, however, they are always an option at Scott Coker's discretion.

Bellator was founded in 2008 by former Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney. Under Rebney's ownership, Bellator featured "The Toughest Tournament in Sports", which was a single-elimination format that awarded the winner of each eight-person or four-person tournament a check for $100,000 and a guaranteed world-title fight against the current Bellator world champion in the applicable weight class. Since Scott Coker took over as president of the promotion, Bellator has stopped with the tournament format and now follows a more traditional MMA format with multiple 1 vs 1 fights placed on multiple cards throughout the year. Bellator switched their cage from a more traditional octagon, to a less defined one. The cage still has eight different angles, making it an octagon, but it looks more circular than its predecessor.