Expanding on their successful initial run on Spike TV, Bellator MMA will switch from 8-man to 4-man tournaments for the upcoming "Summer Series 2013" season, which will also feature the return of prized light-heavyweight "King Mo."
In recent press releases (posted below), the Bellator promotion released the ratings for their virgin tour on Spike TV, which show a 36% increase in eyeballs for their target demographic, and also announced that the field of contenders for their signature elimination tournaments will be narrowed from 8 fighters to 4 for the upcoming "Summer Series 2013" season.
Bellator averaged 861,000 viewers since switching from MTV2 to Spike TV and peaked at 952,000 viewers for the closing show of last season (Bellator 95: Curran vs. Shamhalaev), which amounts to a 36% audience boost in the key demographic of men age 25 through 34 compared to the previous season on MTV2. For competitive reference, the last season of "The Ultimate Fighter" on the FX channel averaged 829,000 viewers while the current season (TUF 17) has risen to 1.23 million viewers per episode.
Bellator's 4-man "Summer Series 2013" tournaments, which aggregate a field of established contenders and new prospects to battle their way toward a title shot, will take place in the following divisions: Heavyweight (championed by Alexander Volkov), Light-Heavyweight (championed by Attila Vegh) and Bantamweight (championed by Eduardo Dantas).
Finally, MMAFighting reports that Muhammed Lawal will return to action this summer, likely as a competitor in the Summer Series 2013 Light-Heavyweight tournament. Lawal was the victim of a shocking upset via spinning-back fist KO courtesy of Emanuel Newton in the last Light-Heavyweight Tournament, who went on to edge out Mikhail Zayats in the finals to win the whole shebang. Prevailing in the tournament affords "The Hardcore Kid" a chance for revenge against Vegh, who defeated Newton in last year's tournament by controversial split decision.
Source: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/4/11/42 ... eries-2013