If you’re like me, you logged on to your DISH Network account this morning, clicked on the pay-per-view section, resisted the urge to spend way too much ranking the “Nude Events” in order of grossest title (obvious winner: “Greased Up MILFs”), and went straight to the sports section to find out how much this variably-priced Bellator pay-per-view would cost you.

Good news, if you happen to live in the great northern wilds of Montana and get your cable TV from DISH Network. It’s only $34.99 in HD, as of Friday morning. That makes Bellator 120 about 20 bucks cheaper than your average UFC pay-per-view event, but does it make it worth your money?

To find out, you’re going to want to ask yourself a few basic questions…

1. What are you paying for, exactly?

This question was a lot easier to answer before Eddie Alvarez pulled out of his Bellator lightweight title defense against Michael Chandler. That trilogy fight was a clear, unimpeachable main event. It made every other bout on the card look like opening acts, which was fine right up until it wasn’t happening anymore. Now what?

Quinton Jackson says his fight with Muhammad Lawal alone is worth the purchase price. He also said he’d “smack the taste” out of Daniel Cormier’s mouth, though, so maybe “Rampage” isn’t the most unbiased source on Rampage-related topics. The truth is that you can’t justify buying this event for any one fight, but you can justify buying it for its collective worth.

Jackson and Lawal? It’s an interesting style matchup between a fading legend and a would-be star who might only get this one last chance to prove he can back up his considerable hype. Chandler and Will Brooks? It’s essentially a chance for Chandler to keep being Chandler, while Brooks gets an opportunity to jump up out of the shadows and be somebody. Tito Ortiz and Alexander Schlemenko? It’s a freaky Cirque du Soleil-type fight, according to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, which sounds suspiciously like something a promoter says when he knows he can’t possibly justify this matchmaking choice. At least Ortiz will probably get a couple minutes on the mic, win or lose, and he’s been in rare form in interviews this week. For instance:

“This Russian called me out, and I think he made a big mistake,” Ortiz said. “He was counting his chickens before they hatched, and this is a man that’s neither a chicken nor an egg – and I’m going to smash him like an egg.”

Wow. Even by Ortiz’s standards, that’s…something.

Add in a dash of weirdo striker Michael Page, the usual Russian displays of humorless bad-assery that we’re used to from Bellator’s heavyweights, and you actually have something resembling a fun night at the fights. Maybe there’s no one huge fight that jumps out at you – maybe, in fact, Rebney’s claim that this event has “a monster amount of depth” is a little insulting to our intelligence – but it’s still not a bad lineup for the reduced price.

2. How seriously do you take the need for a viable UFC alternative?

It’s become an immutable MMA truth among hardcore fans: Competition is good for the sport. That’s what we tell ourselves and each other, anyway. But do we believe it? As Danny Downes mentioned in this past weekend’s Trading Shots, there are times when it seems like fans are “actively rooting against Bellator.”

In theory, it should be the other way around. Assuming we really do want an alternative to the UFC, we should want to see Bellator succeed. The problem is, while a lot of MMA fans want there to be a No. 2, the drive to support the sport as a whole isn’t quite enough to compel them to get their credit cards out. For that, they need a fight so great or so important that they simply can’t stand to miss it, and this event doesn’t have that.

For many fans, I suspect this will be the point where their professed beliefs slam up against their actual, financial reality. We might claim to want competition in the marketplace in some vague, hypothetical sense. The question is, do we want it badly enough to pay for it ourselves?

3. What will happen if you don’t buy it?

Bellator won’t vanish with disappointing pay-per-view numbers. It won’t suddenly assume the throne with a surprisingly good showing, either. Whatever happens on Saturday night, you’ll probably wake up on Sunday morning to an MMA landscape that feels pretty much wholly unchanged, so what’s the difference?

For one, there’s always the question: What if something awesome happens? What if Chandler-Brooks becomes the new Chandler-Alvarez? What if “King Mo” transforms into the fighter he was always supposed to be, right before our eyes? What if Ortiz actually gets to do his gravedigger routine for the first time in…a long time? What if you miss it?

The extent to which that would bother you probably tells you a lot about whether Bellator 120 is worth your money. So too does your sense of the probability that any of the above scenarios will actually materialize. In that sense, it’s like any other pay-per-view event. Only, depending on where you live, a little cheaper. Also maybe a little weirder, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It might even be something worth paying for.

For the latest on Bellator 120, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.