ST. LOUIS – When Bellator MMA recently announced a one-night four-man light-heavyweight tournament, it surprised almost everyone in the MMA world. But the initial vision was a bit more ambitious.

With Scott Coker taking over the position of Bellator president, the promotion has taken on a new identity. The blend of legitimate fighters and pure spectacle – like that found in Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson vs. Ken Shamrock and Stephan Bonnar vs. Tito Ortiz – is a Coker trademark that dates back to his days running Strikeforce.

Coker attributed the tournament idea, which takes place Sept. 19 at Bellator 142 and airs on Spike TV from San Jose’s SAP Center, to his experience in the sport and what he’d like to see as a fight fan.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Coker told MMAjunkie. “I would love to go to an event, see some great MMA, see a tournament, see some kickboxing at the highest level and be fully entertained. So I said, ‘Why don’t we just do this?’ We had a couple hurdles trying to set up the venue with both apparatuses. We went and actually set it up to make sure the sight lines were good and then called (California State Athletic Commission Executive Director) Andy Foster and asked, ‘Can we do this with the rules and regulations?’ Couldn’t be an eight-man tournament. Because we originally wanted an eight-man tournament.

“He said, ‘No, you can only go five rounds. Total. Just like a title fight. You can do one round, or you can do four rounds, or you can do two or three. You can do two-two-one if there’s overtime.’ He gave us the choice, and I said, ‘Let’s just go two. And then we’ll do three.’ And that’s what it is.”

The tourney field includes Phil Davis (13-3 MMA, 0-0 BMMA), Muhammed Lawal (15-4-1 MMA, 7-3 BMMA), Emanuel Newton (25-8-1 MMA, 8-2 BMMA) and Linton Vassell (15-4 MMA, 4-1 BMMA). The winner will then fight the victor of Bellator 141’s headliner between champ Liam McGeary (10-0 MMA, 7-0 BMMA) and challenger Ortiz (18-11-1 MMA, 2-0 BMMA).

The first-round matchups being two rounds opens up the possibility of a draw. Coker says that Bellator and the CSAC are exploring the possibility of using a fourth judge in case of a draw on the three official scorecards.

Coker’s most ambitious tournament was the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix, the eight-man tournament spread out over several events in 2011 and 2012. His experiences with holding an eight-man tournament over a significant length of time motivated Coker’s decision to go “old school” with a tournament taking place over one night.

“I’ll tell you – the Strikeforce tournament I feel like is one of my biggest accomplishments and was probably one of the best tournaments,” Coker said. “The lineup, you had Fabricio Werdum, you had Fedor (Emelianenko), Alistair Overeem, Andrei Arlovski, Josh Barnett, (Antonio) Silva. We had some great heavyweights in there. But it got challenging as time went on. I said, ‘We’re not going to do that anymore. We’re going back to the old school. Let’s see if we can get an eight-man tournament or a four-man tournament.’

“I asked Andy, he said, ‘Sure.’ I called the guys, and they were all for it. They said, ‘We’re in.’ Phil Davis was pumped up. He was like, ‘I’m 200 percent in.’ That was his text back to me.”

Check out the full conversation above.

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