to be fair, they didn't start going heavily down the WWE-style "entertainment industry" path until quite recently (long after UFC commited to it), when they announced their first PPV ever involving Rampage and Tito...
before that, their tournament format and pipeline of hi-skill/lo-charisma Eastern-European fighters made Bellator a FAR less commercial, FAR less spin-doctored ("Ronda Rousey is one of the best MMA practitioners of either gender ON PLANET EARTH...should have an over-under prop on how many times those three words will come out of Rogan's mouth on one broadcast,,,but i digress)...
Bellator has always been shorter than the UFC in the overall-talent department...but always tried to compensate for that by being LESS about the entertainment/marketability/etc. bullshit and MORE about the sport...it was the tournament-format selecting the next challenger that kept everything real, everything cohesive...
but since that WWE-style "surprised by Tito" carrying the flag walkout to announce their first "Superfight" PPV attempt...they've gone full-tilt into the bullshit attention-whoring...best example is this latest crap of Quinton ("where and when's my next paycheck") Jackson and Muhammed Lawal PRETENDING (when the cameras are rolling) to hate each other..."bad blood" my ass...it's bad acting and a cringe-worthy reminder that Bellator's decided to downplay the sport and play up the attention-whoring aspects
btw, if you want to pursue this "why/how bellator's going down the drain" angle...i started a thread (by cutting an pasting from here to get started)...
http://www.sportsbookreview.com/forum/boxing-mma...urn-worse.html