Bellator 149 puts mixed martial arts under the big top
Friday’s Bellator MMA event in Houston has been almost universally panned as little more than a circus by purists of mixed martial arts.
While that may be a fair critique, such a designation must include the caveat that sometimes a trip to the circus can be a very fun experience.
Bellator 149 certainly has that potential with a headliner pitting 52-year-old Ken Shamrock against 49-year-old Royce Gracie. The light heavyweights have met twice before, with the first bout taking place at UFC 1 in 1993.
Gracie hasn’t competed since 2007 and Shamrock hasn’t won since 2010. Again, it’s the main event.
The co-main event may be even more preposterous.
Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson will fight Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris in a heavyweight bout pitting a pair of brawlers who became stars through YouTube videos of their days in the Miami street-fighting scene.
Harris spent a brief period of time working both as security for Ferguson and as a sort of promoter and matchmaker for him both on the streets and early on in his transition to legitimacy in the sport.
The relationship soured, however, and Harris returned to south Florida to promote backyard fight cards and was eventually the subject of the documentary “Dawg Fight.” At the end of the film, he won his pro debut and called out Ferguson, who was in attendance.
Nearly six years later, Bellator president Scott Coker decided to finally make the fight happen even though Harris has fought just twice as a professional.
Ferguson acknowledged part of his motivation for accepting the fight was to settle a personal score.
“I’ve never taken a fight (to) enjoy beating a person’s ass, but I really feel good about this one,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “I feel really good about this one. There’s nothing this (expletive) can do that’s going to hurt me. I’ve proven myself.”
Things only escalated from there during a profanity-filled exchange.
“At the end of the day, you’re not capable physically or mentally of doing all that (expletive) that you’re talking about. I’m going to manhandle you, dude. I promise you that,” Harris responded. “Three people are going in. Only two people are coming out of their free will and that’s me and the ref. You ain’t got to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s getting left.”
That prompted Ferguson to rise out of his chair and utter a few vulgarities that have overtaken social media during the last several days.
Coker made a decision to not to have Ferguson and Harris do a staredown photo during weigh-ins on Thursday for fear of an incident.
Shamrock and Gracie’s rivalry isn’t quite as heated, but it’s been brewing for even longer.
Gracie quickly won the first bout between the two at UFC 1, but the rematch two years later at UFC 5 has long been a topic of discussion.
In one of the most anticipated fights in early UFC history, neither Shamrock nor Gracie could gain an upper hand in a bout that went 31 minutes with no breaks before an on-the-spot decision to go another five minutes.
That overtime period also failed to produce a winner and it has irked Shamrock for more than two decades.
“There’s an issue here I want settled,” Shamrock said. “I’ve been asking for it for quite some time now and now I get to settle it in the cage without arguing about it any more.”
Coker said he’s glad to help put the historic rivalry to rest.
“I think about 1993 sitting in my friend’s living room, watching these two guys go at it. That was the pivot point that made mixed martial arts what it is today. There was a shift to where you can’t just be a striker. It was that fight that really changed the history of martial arts,” Coker said. “That’s the significance of it. I’m proud to do this fight. I’ve watched this fight in my mind from the walkout to the locking of the cage. I can’t wait.”
The card, which also features former UFC lightweight contender Melvin Guillard fighting Derek Campos, airs live on Spike TV at 6 p.m.
Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj
