Former WEC Middleweight Champion Joe Riggs (40-14-1) is back on track in the world of MMA after defeating Mike Bronzoulis (15-6-1) by unanimous decision to become the first winner of Bellator’s Fight Master on Spike TV and earning a six-figure contract to his name.
Now that the first season is over and considering it did fairly well for Bellator’s standards, I’d expect to see another season of Fight Master. But despite the show’s moderate success, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney doesn’t sound so certain about moving forward with a new season or even the future of Fight Master altogether.
During the Bellator 106 post-fight press conference Rebney revealed the following thoughts about the future of the show on Spike TV:
We’ve had a few different discussions about what would happen, if it’s going to come back, what it looks like if it comes back, what changes would be made, what wouldn’t be made.
In addition, he explained that the ratings for MMA reality shows are hurting in general, including the UFC, whose numbers aren’t so strong for The Ultimate Fighter this season either:
Reality fight TV is having its difficulties right now. You can see it in the UFC’s ratings, they’re having the lowest-rated TUF they’ve had in the history of the show. Reality TV on the fight front is not an easy nut to crack to draw huge viewership right now. But we’re getting good numbers on the live events. So we’ll see. I don’t know.
At least Rebney confirmed that Bellator MMA is doing great on live events, and like he said, we’ll just have to wait to see what they decided to do with Fight Master.
