Why The Booking of Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 Signals a Brilliant Shift in Policy for Bellator

If you guys haven’t been following the lead-up to tonight’s battle between Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000, hooooo boy have you been missing out.

For starters, the fight is being billed as a matchup to determine the “King of the Streets” despite the fact that, you know, it’s being contested in a cage. Secondly, the trash-talk between the two Miami-based brawlers has been next level bonkers, with Slice calling out Mr. 5000′s “baby nuts” and challenging him to a literal dick-measuring contest at the event’s press conference earlier this week. Oh, and had we mentioned that the fight has been so heavily bet on by “three or four” mystery men that it literally forced bookmakers to shift the odds for the fight? It has been an outstanding series of events, to put it mildly.

Anyways, CagePotato recently weighed in on what this bizarre matchup means for the future of Bellator over at Uproxx, and wouldn’t you know it, we think it’s the best move that the promotion could have possibly made. Head after the jump for a little preview of our assessment and make sure to tune into what will surely be a ludicrous matchup at Bellator 149 tonight.

——-

The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to realize that the booking of Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 actually signals a rather brilliant shift in ideology by Bellator. Do you guys see it? Bellator knows that this fight is shit, and in fact, that’s why they booked it in the first place.

We are living in the era of nostalgia-driven, “ironic” entertainment — an era where more so-bad-it’s-good films, television shows, comics, and whathaveyou are being churned out than ever before, with the lone goal of gaining a “cult following” through pure, intentional ineptitude. Knowing that they may never top the UFC in terms of actually talent, Bellator isn’t simply lowering its standards, it’s adapting its business model to cash in on a proven trend among millennials that is already being exploited by every other entertainment industry. It’s as if Scott Coker wandered into one of the monthly screenings of The Room held at the Regent Theater, saw how people were reacting to it, and thought “Hey, maybe I can do this with MMA.”

So as someone who views Dream’s Super Hulk Grand Prix as the pinnacle of modern mixed martial arts, I was all in on the idea of Kimbo vs. Dada from the day one.

Read the rest of our thoughts on Slice vs. Dada over at Uproxx.