Bellator MMA To Produce Celebrity Fight Tournament Series For SpikeTV

NEWPORT BEACH, California –

Bellator MMA, the country’s second-largest mixed martial arts promotion, announced today that they would be putting together a celebrity tournament featuring some major names in Hollywood. They are hoping to use these fights to increase their television ratings, as well as bring more notice to their fighters and promotion as a whole.

Founder Bjorn Rebney started Bellator MMA in 2008 as the Bellator Fighting Championship (Bellator is latin for “warrior”) as a competitor to the uber-popular UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has been televising MMA fights since 1993. In the last several years, Bellator has slowly gained almost a cult-following of fans, who closely follow their 8-man tournaments, which are set up as a counter-action to the individual one-off fights presented by the UFC.

Rebney announced the new event from the company’s headquarters in Newport Beach, California.

“It is with great pleasure that I announce the new incarnation of Bellator MMA with our Celebrity Fights Tournament!” Said Rebney during his press conference. “We are very excited to work with our group of stars, to help train them, and get them ring-ready to beat the living hell out of each other.”

The announced celebrities that have already signed on the dotted line for the fights include Academy Award winning actors Matt Damon and Edward Norton, Danny DeVito, cult film director Kevin Smith, pop-star Justin Timberlake, pussy-boy Michael Cera, every woman’s masturbatory fantasy Channing Tatum, and for some bizarre reason, 90s rapper Coolio.

The tournament will take place in mid-January, and will be televised on SpikeTV in the U.S. and CTV in Canada. Bellator’s normal rules will apply, as each celebrity is paired off against another in an 8-man bi-weekly staggered tournament, which will be compromised of three, 5-minute rounds each. The winner will be given $100,000 for his favorite charity and, like any Bellator tournament winner, will be able to challenge current champion Vitaly Minakov of Russia. Minakov has been the Bellator heavyweight champion since November of 2013, and is expected to completely destroy any of the celebrities who may challenge him, especially Danny DeVito.

So far, a few of the celebrities have already been seen in gyms bulking up for their fight, including Edward Norton, who is looking to put back on all the American History X muscle and defeat Cera, who has been selected as his opponent for the first round.

“I know that I can beat him right to the ground. Who hasn’t wanted to punch Michael Cera in the face on more than one occasion? Jesus, did you guys see Year One? He deserves to be beaten into oblivion for making bad movies,” said Norton, apparently forgetting he starred in The Incredible Hulk.

Bellator MMA is said to already be seeking fighters for their next celebrity tournament, and has reportedly reached out to funny man Seth Rogen, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, and Star Wars creator George Lucas. So far, no one else has signed-on officially, but speculation is high that everyone will be on board.

ORANGE COUNTY, California –

After professional MMA fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller was arrested yesterday following a police standoff, several other fighters throughout the MMA world quickly worked to scrap their existing nicknames in place of gentler, more mild-sounding in-ring names.

“If Jason’s nickname wasn’t ‘Mayhem,’ he probably wouldn’t be looking at jail time,” said fighter Mark “The Killer” Hudson. “I don’t want to appear like a violent guy. I’m a professional fighter, but that’s just in the ring. Someday someone I know will end up dead, and they’ll come right to me. ‘Well, his name is The Killer,’ they’ll say. F— that. From now on, I’m going to be known as Mark ‘The Loving Friend and Husband’ Hudson.”

Over the last several months, multiple arrests have been made on professional cage fighters, including several from major MMA company the UFC. In August of 2014, UFC fighter Jonathan Koppenhaver, who goes by the name ‘War Machine,’ was arrested for an alleged assault on his porn star girlfriend Christy Mack.

“That’s another example of just a horrible, abysmal name choice,” said Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. “I don’t think I’m going to stick with Rampage, that’s for sure. All these guys getting arrested, I need to tone it down. I don’t beat my girlfriend or wife like some of these guys, but you have to understand, if Mayhem’s name was ‘Friendly’ or ‘Mr. Hugs’ or something, no one would believe he was guilty. Because of his name, it’s assumed by the public and any potential jury, automatically, that’s he’s an abusive sonofabitch.”

Jackson went on to say that he would like to be referred to as “Dr. Love” in future bouts. Several other professional MMA fighters, including Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, Joey “The Mexicutioner” Beltran, and Christoph “I Beat My Wife Regularly” Jones also say that are considering changing or dropping their nicknames from promotional materials and are asking announcers to stop use as well.

cage fighting

Bellator MMA To Produce Celebrity Fight Tournament Series For SpikeTV

Spousal Abuse Arrests Prompt MMA Fighters To Change In-Ring Nicknames