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Marloes Coenen is the real deal.
Great fights means great TV ratings.
I always love meeting other promoters.
I worked for a Japanese company called K1 for a while.
Bellator has the best welterweight fighters in the world.
Martial arts is something I studied since I was 6 years old.
Hugh Hefner represented pop culture in a way that no else could.
MMA fans should thank Spike TV for their commitment to the sport.
It's good to team up with Spike and Viacom. I see a lot of potential.
I grew up as a martial artist, and I'm still a martial artist at heart.
In Strikeforce, we're committed to putting on the best fights that we can.
Tournaments, traditionally, are kind of the way martial arts contests happen.
I think I'm going to be a juggler when I retire from the promotion business one day.
The welterweight division has really emerged as one of our most exciting weight classes.
It's not every day you are able to sign a top-10 athlete, let alone two in the same week.
Spike is an entertainment company. So why not have entertaining fights when you can do them?
When I was a kid, there were probably 100 schools in the Bay Area that just did martial arts.
I thought, 'If I can create a business to promote martial arts, that'd sure be a lot of fun.'
If you look at Germany and France, a couple other countries, those are really kickboxing markets.
When you think about mixed martial arts, you have to think about the entire scope of the athlete.
We have a zero tolerance policy here at Bellator when it relates to any form of domestic violence.
Our sport has great fighters and great fans. And the fans really get to connect to those fighters.
To say martial arts, or the combative form - mixed martial arts - is not an art form is incorrect.
At the end of the day, it's a business about fighters and a business about people. This is our philosophy.
When I think about the skill level of Andrey Koreshkov, he is at the top of his game and at an elite level.
MMA has a great safety record. I was always confused as to why it was illegal in New York in the first place.
Sometimes the fighter or an athlete feels they're valued a certain price, and sometimes we don't feel that way.
There are a lot of details you have to work out when you're talking about fighters competing twice in one night.
As a martial arts promoter and as a fan of martial arts, you go, 'What would happen if this guy fought this guy?'
Martial arts is self-growth. It's artistic impression. It's self-defense... it doesn't have any place in politics.
I love big events. It reminds me of the old days, when I knew everyone on the fight card, and it wasn't just one fight.
Strikeforce is here to stay; we are definitely going to do our part to grow the sport and be good ambassadors of the sport.
We've always looked for guys and girls who have striking ability... there's a reason my past company was called Strikeforce.
One of the most popular MMA fighters ever, Kimbo was a charismatic, larger-than-life personality that transcended the sport.
We are all shocked and saddened by the devastating and untimely loss of Kimbo Slice, a beloved member of the Bellator family.
Whereas there's more of a learning curb with MMA, kickboxing is pretty easy to understand and has no geographical boundaries.
I used to go to fights in Japan, mega shows at soccer stadiums. They would have all kinds of martial arts fights in one night.
Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo are two of the best in our business, and I couldn't be happier about them joining the Bellator family.
All my fighters know I'm a fan of theirs. They know I think of them as the stars and that we will facilitate in the building of their stock.
I've taught martial arts to many children, from 5 years old and up - there's character development, there's respect, discipline, perseverance.
I think boxing is on the rise because of what Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor did. I think they captured the time and made boxing cool again.
I buy the UFC pay-per-views that are on OnDemand, DirectTV, and DISH. As far as quality, come on. These are the best heavyweights in the world. I think everybody knows that.
In my years of doing the K1 fights, one thing I've learned is that the guys who you think will be there in the end - very rarely do you get the match up you were hoping for.
I think the MMA and boxing are different audiences. I think it's a different intrigue. There's no reason you can't be a fan of both; why does it have to be one or the other?
We want Bellator to be a destination for not only the top-tier fighters in the sport, but the first-choice destination for fans to see the most entertaining fights in the sport.
A lot of fighters want that freedom to have their own sponsorships. When you think about it, how do you make independent contractors wear a uniform? That just seems strange to me.
When you think about martial arts here in the states, kickboxing was here in the '70s, and it kind of ran its course. But I always felt there was a place in combat sports for kickboxing.
We're not going to do monthly pay-per-view just to do pay-per-views. We're going to build up to big fights more like the boxing model, and when the time is right, we'll do the big, big fights.
If the fighter doesn't want to fight, you're not gonna want him to fight. If the fighter doesn't want to fight, the promoter doesn't make him fight. And if he wants to retire, then it's time to walk away.
I'm not thinking of any other leagues. I'm really not. I'm thinking of what can I do to move Bellator forward. I'm thinking of what we need to fix, what fighters we should sign, where we can expand internationally.