Best of Bellator special airs tomorrow before Rizin
Spike announced tonight that it will be airing a Best of Bellator special tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Eastern and Pacific time, as a prelude to the Rizing show.
The show, hosted by Sean Grande and Jimmy Smith, called “Bellator MMA: Best of 2015,” will cover the biggest matches of the past year and feature fights like Kimbo Slice, Ken Shamrock, Tito Ortiz, Liam McGeary and Phil Davis, and start the build to a McGeary vs. Davis light heavyweight championship match.
The Rizin show, built around Fedor Emelianenko, King Mo Lawal and the sad spectacle of the Shinya Aoki vs. Kazushi Sakuraba fight, starts at 10 a.m., on tape delay from the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, as promoter Nobuyuki Sakakibara attempts to rebuild the pageantry and circus like atmosphere that made Pride events so big a decade ago.
Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.