For just the second time in company history, and first under current president Scott Coker, Bellator MMA will test its selling power on the pay-per-view market this weekend.
A light heavyweight main event between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva will headline Bellator: NYC on Saturday inside Madison Square Garden. The event will also feature Russian icon Fedor Emelianenko and three title fights.
Earlier this month, Coker told ESPN he would be happy to sell approximately 250,000 buys, and added anything over 300,000 would be considered a home run.
The Sonnen, Silva grudge match he's relying on to get him there dates back to 2014, when the two coached against one another on a UFC reality series. The fight never happened, though, as both were suspended that year for doping cases.
What's at stake now, more than three years later? And who gets the job done? ESPN's Cheat Sheet, Bellator: NYC edition, is here to sort it out.
Chael Sonnen (28-15-1) vs. Wanderlei Silva (35-12-1)
Light heavyweight
Odds: Sonnen -155; Silva +135
Once upon a time in Las Vegas, Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva shared a stage for a news conference to promote their upcoming fight at UFC 175.
It was only three years ago, but it feels like another lifetime. Each has gone through a lot in the three years since, as has the sport. An undefeated Ronda Rousey attended that same Las Vegas news conference and fielded (half-)serious questions about fighting men.
Some things, of course haven't changed. In 2014, Sonnen cracked a joke about Silva's inability to count higher than 11. During a Bellator media call last week, he challenged Silva to count backward from 10. Pretty classic Chael.
And that's probably the best way to summarize this, actually. The sport of MMA has drastically changed in the past three years. Sonnen and Silva weren't around to change with it. In some ways, they look like a pair of frozen artifacts from another time.
The sport began random drug testing around 2014, and this rivalry sort of turned into a case study of what was going on. Within a one-month span, Silva literally ran from a random drug test and Sonnen tested positive for multiple banned substances. Silva received a lifetime ban at first, but that was ultimately reduced to three years. Sonnen was suspended for two.
Not that what happened in 2014 needs to be the focus of 2017. But you wonder if, in some way, this rivalry now represents more than a few demeaning comments about Brazil by Sonnen, or Silva's decision to get a little physical on a reality television show once.
For Silva, Saturday will mark his first appearance since that decision to run from a test collector in Las Vegas. For Sonnen, it's his second fight since coming off suspension. The first one did not go well. He was submitted in the first round by Tito Ortiz at Bellator 170 in January, in a sequence so ugly some fans accused it of being staged.
"Tito sucks and I just sucked even worse," Sonnen said. "I lost to the worst guy in the sport. That makes me the worst guy in the sport and that doesn't sit well."
It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, as much of what Sonnen says is, but again, you can't help but wonder if somewhere behind Sonnen's jokes and Silva's mean mugs -- both of which Bellator chose to headline its most important card of the year -- is a real desire for both to finally see this fight happen and maybe return to a sense of normalcy that existed before.
Fight breakdown
Both used to be world class. How much of that is left? It's impossible to know, but we can sure speculate, right?
You can make a case that of the two, Sonnen's skill set has aged more gracefully. Silva is a brawler. Few in the history of the sport have been more comfortable in the pocket. Expect Silva's fearlessness to still be there. A four-year layoff won't affect that. His timing and hand speed on the other hand? Four years off could absolutely affect that.
Sonnen's ability to ride out an opponent from top position is probably affected less. Although just about everything went wrong last time out against Ortiz, the differences between Ortiz and Silva are monumental. One is nothing like the other. So, while you can try to speculate on Sonnen's overall level of motivation by watching his loss to Ortiz, it's hard to draw any parallels to what he'll deal with, stylistically, here.
Silva can be a very dangerous man to shoot on. He has a good sprawl, and he'll jump into berserker flurry mode any time he has you off-balance after a failed shot. He throws from awkward angles and he's aggressive. That much of course we know. Doesn't mean he's running full speed from the opening bell, but when he sees his opportunities, he lets things fly until you force him to reset.
That's what makes this fight tough to predict. Because on paper, Sonnen should have the ability to take Silva down. And even if he's unable to hold him there for five minutes at a time, he'll make Silva work to get up and, if he's successful, he'll probably just take him down again.
But if there's too many of those, we should probably keep an eye on Sonnen's gas tank. Even though he's known for cardio and relatively efficient takedowns, he's also 40 and coming off a very flat performance in January. Not suggesting he'll quit based on what we saw six months ago, but if an early effort to drag Silva down zaps his energy, look out for the Silva flurries.
Prediction: Sonnen via submission, second round.