Reason Why ONE Championship Going Head-To-Head With Bellator Would Make More Sense

In recent days, talks of promotion-versus-promotion crossover events in mixed martial arts (MMA) have seen a bit of an uptick, and it's partly thanks to Bellator working with Rizin Fighting Federation for a head-to-head card that took place in Saitama, Japan on New Year's Eve.

While it happened on Rizin's home turf, the visitors from the United States had the last laugh as they swept the matches, 5-0.

International Business Times recently posted a piece on why, as successful and as entertaining as Bellator MMA vs. Rizin was, a ONE Championship-UFC crossover event would blow that extravganza out of the water and would without question be the biggest event in combat sports history.

As fun as it was to hypothesize and play armchair matchmaker to an event of such magnitude, the reality is that a ONE Championship-UFC affair would likely only take place in the minds of MMA fans all over the world.

It's no secret that UFC president Dana White has been a little hesitant when it comes to co-promoting since he didn't quite get the result he wanted when he sent Chuck Liddell to represent the UFC in the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix tournament back in 2003.

At the time, Liddell was considered one of the biggest and most dangerous stars in the UFC, and it was predicted that he would come in and dominate the tourney.

While he did knock out Alistair Overeem in the opening round, he would himself get stopped by Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the semifinals.

In fact, it's even more likely that fans get to see a ONE Championship-versus-Bellator MMA crossover.

While it won't have nearly as much impact as a co-promotion with the UFC, it would still definitely be a refreshing spectacle to look forward to if it does happen.

ONE Championship vs. Bellator is closer to reality because, on multiple occasions, the latter has been willing and able to pull the trigger on crossovers and has even been willing to be the ones to go out of its way to travel to other countries just to get it done.

Fans and cageside pundits saw that when Bellator went to Japan for the joint fight card with Rizin, so it's not impossible that Scott Coker and company would be willing to make the trip to Singapore for a co-promotion with Chatri Sityodtong's ONE Championship.

On the flipside, ONE Championship could also make the trip stateside as the organization has long been wanting to mount shows in the United States.

A promotion-versus-promotion offering with Bellator would be an awesome way for ONE Championship to follow up its first-ever show in the United States this coming May.

Speaking of Coker, the CEO of Bellator, the man has had an amazing track record when it comes to breathing new life into otherwise struggling organizations.

During his time with Strikeforce, Coker managed to make the promotion a clear No. 2 behind the UFC before the latter ultimately bought the company out.

Now with Bellator, Coker has managed to keep the promotion widely relevant and has done a good job of building stars outside the UFC into household names, with Patricio Pitbull and AJ McKee being prime examples.

He has also kept former Pride heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko active, and the Russian icon is on the cusp of becoming a Bellator champion.

With that being said, it would be very interesting to see how ONE Championship's titleholders and Bellator's champions would fare against each other.

• Arjhan Bhullar or Anatoly Malykhin vs. Ryan Bader or Fedor Emelianenko
• Vadim Nemkov vs. Anatoly Malykhin
• Johnny Eblen vs. Reinier de Ridder
• Usman Nurmagomedov vs. Christian Lee
• Sergio Pettis vs. John Lineker or Fabricio Andrade

It's hard to deny that's a pretty stacked-looking bout lineup.

Another interesting wrinkle is that Bellator had also mounted kickboxing events from 2016 to 2019, while ONE Championship has heavily promoted kickboxing and Muay Thai bouts.

If the two promotions do link up, Bellator can revisit bringing back its kickboxing bracket and pit its best athletes versus ONE Championship's top-tier kickboxers as well.

With all things considered, a ONE Championship-versus-UFC card is still the dream event to see, but a ONE Championship-versus-Bellator extravaganza would be a very good alternative.

It could even be the spark that put things in motion in terms of promotion-versus-promotion showdowns.