With Alvarez back in fold, Bellator finally has something worth selling on PPV

This time, Bellator MMA’s big news didn’t drop on live TV.

No painstakingly slow reveal. No cut to the silhouetted figure at the top of the ramp. No sound tech with his eager finger hovering over whatever button it is that makes that one Eminem song start up again.

This one was relatively quiet, at least when compared to that other one. And yet the news that Eddie Alvarez is back with Bellator and the rematch with Michael Chandler is officially a go for November seems so much more important, like something that might actually give Bellator’s grand pay-per-view experiment a fighting chance.

When Bellator announced that Tito Ortiz would be joining the company to face Quinton Jackson on its first pay-per-view card, it felt a little like when your two friends who are totally wrong for and utterly toxic to one another gather everyone together to announce that they’re having a baby. No one thinks it’s such a great idea, but they try to be polite. At the very least, they try to conceal their horror until they’re alone in the car on the way home.

But this is different. This is that rare species of big MMA news that actually, truly is, and for several different reasons.

Neither Alvarez nor Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney will say exactly what the “compromise” was that they settled on, but evidently it was appealing enough to both sides (or maybe its alternative was simply unappealing enough) to convince them to drop their dueling lawsuits and be friends again. Just like that, Alvarez is back in the fold, and suddenly there’s a reason for MMA fans to consider buying this Bellator pay-per-view after all.

Let’s not underestimate the importance of that last point. Chandler-Alvarez II might not be the fight of the century, but I think we all know that Bellator is better off staking its pay-per-view hopes on that than on Ortiz and “Rampage” alone. Those two have some lingering name value, that much is true. And there are probably some fans out there with enough disposable income and morbid curiosity to result in a few buys. It’s just that there aren’t many of those people. There can’t be. If there were, YAMMA would have been a bigger hit.

But Alvarez-Chandler? Now that’s a real fight. Like any reboot of an instant classic, it faces almost unreasonable expectations, and there’s probably little chance that it can live up to, much less surpass the original. Still, this feels like a bout that might actually be relevant to MMA as a whole, and to the lightweight division in general. It seems like it might really matter.

That’s what Bellator’s been missing so far. Chandler is the closest thing it has to a champion who seems like he could maybe, possibly be the best in the world. The problem is the lack of quality opponents for him to prove it against. Re-signing Alvarez, who Chandler already beat once, doesn’t completely erase that problem, but at least it signals Bellator’s willingness to open up the pocketbook in order to address it.

If you’re looking for signs that Bellator might have the staying power to last through these rough spots, that’s the most encouraging one yet. One of Bellator’s main problems is perception. No fighter starts out hoping to become Bellator champion some day. Even the fighters already in Bellator likely see the belt as a means to some greater, more proftable end in the UFC. If they start to see that they can stay in Bellator and still make serious money, however, we might find that cash trumps dreams for a lot of people.

Not that an MMA organization can’t very easily go wrong with that approach. Affliction paid its fighters well, let’s not forget. Right up until it disappeared.

Bellator at least has Viacom, its majority owner, standing behind it. It has some money to spend. Now it also has Alvarez, and at last a resolution to a bitter, potentially damaging contract dispute.

It’s not exactly a fairy tale ending, but it might be the best the organization could hope for under the circumstances. At least now Bellator has something worth selling on its first pay-per-view. It just has to hope enough fans agree that it was worth all the trouble in the end.

For more on Bellator 106, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez)