The Bottom Line: The Rodney Dangerfield of MMA

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Despite holding the Bellator MMA heavyweight title and sporting the far more impressive resume, there weren’t a lot of people picking Ryan Bader to defeat interim champion Valentin Moldavsky in the Bellator 273 main event on Saturday in Phoenix. The Russian was 11-1, a decade younger and had rarely lost around over the course of his Bellator career. The sportsbooks installed him as the clear favorite over Bader. That’s nothing new for Bader, who has led something of a Rodney Dangerfield-like existence over the course of his MMA career, searching for the respect befitting someone who has spent over a decade as a perennial Top 10 contender. After getting the nod on the judges’ scorecards in a close and competitive fight, that quest continues on.

It’s easy to forget that it once appeared Bader might be one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s signature stars. After winning the eighth season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” the then-undefeated Bader was put on the star track. It was thought his wrestling accolades and knockout power would carry him through against high-end competition. Only a few fights into his UFC career, he was fighting on pay-per-view against the likes of Keith Jardine and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Back in 2010, it would have seemed improbable that Bader would never be in a UFC title fight.

The problem for Bader, of course, was another young star emerging at the same time he was. Jon Jones was younger—and better—than Bader, and when he submitted the Reno, Nevada, native at UFC 126, it was going to be difficult to ever sell a rematch. Jones hasn’t lost a fight since, which has proven to be a significant problem for Bader’s career upside. Being a 205-pound contemporary of Jones is like being an AFC East quarterback drafted a year before Tom Brady.

Making matters worse was Bader’s submission loss to Tito Ortiz his next time out—the only victory “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” scored in the final nine fights and six years of his UFC career. The loss to Jones was deflating, but the loss to Ortiz was genuinely embarrassing given the time period and context of it. Although it came relatively early on in Bader’s UFC career, the loss to Ortiz cemented a perception that lasted even as the two-time NCAA All-American went 10-3 over the remainder of his UFC career.

Bader’s decision to leave UFC for Bellator was in many ways a wise one. He wasn’t blocked from the top of the Bellator light heavyweight division—or, as we later discovered, the Bellator heavyweight division—like he was in the UFC. He also jumped during a time period when Bellator was aggressive in adding talent, and he was highly likely to make more money, given that he wasn’t headlining pay-per-views and thus getting cut in on pay-per-view points. The move paid off in all regards when he became the first simultaneous two-division champion in Bellator and won the promotion’s heavyweight grand prix to boot.

In spite of his success, the perception of Bader could only rise to a certain level because he was limited by the level of competition Bellator provided him to fight. Fighters like Matt Mitrione, Muhammed Lawal and Fedor Emelianenko were fairly viewed as past their peaks. On the other hand, any loss by Bader, particularly in his late 30s, was going to linger. That was the case even with men like Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderson—top light heavyweights in any promotion in the world. The problem with fighting in a shallower pool is that the wins don’t carry you as far and the losses take longer to forget.

If Bellator President Scott Coker were to choose a fighter to best represent his company, it would almost certainly be A.J. McKee. The undefeated McKee represents Bellator as it would like to be seen: young, rising and knocking on the door to challenge any competitor out there. In reality, Bellator these days more closely resembles Bader: proud, accomplished but perceived to be in decline and battling for relevance.

Bellator’s run of acquisitions from a few years back are getting older, and the organization’s effort to groom a new generation of stars has produced mixed results. Television viewership has been consistently weak, and competitors like Combate Global and the Professional Fighters League have made strong pushes to usurp Bellator’s position as the No. 2 MMA promotion in North America. Yet, Bader’s latest performance is a reminder of what Bellator does still have going for it: a collection of proven and known commodities like Bader, Gegard Mousasi, Patricio Freire and Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino. Bader and Bellator might not be the flashiest and may not be generating the most buzz these days, but they have a track record of success, and neither is going out without a fight.