Bellator Fighting Championships was the idea of Bjorn Rebney, who envisioned a MMA promotion whose champions and contenders would not be determined by the biases of the promoter.
Rebney had worked in the boxing business, but was not excited about that sport. After a falling out with Sugar Ray Leonard, Rebney turned his focus to Mixed Martial Arts. According to one account, Rebney had taken numerous mortgages on his home to fund at least sixty business trips to start a MMA promotion.
Rebney found an ally in Tim Danaher, who was the Vice President of Plainfield Asset Management. With Danaher's support, Bellator Fighting Championships was founded in 2008 as the "toughest tournament in sport". Bjorn Rebney became the company's Chairman and CEO. Tim Danaher joined as it's President and COO.
The company had it's first events in 2009.
In late 2011, Viacom brought a majority share in Bellator Fighting Championships. With this purchase, came a media higher visibility on stations such as EPIX, MTV2 and Spike TV.
Several fighters became well-known in the promotion: Fighters like Eddie Alvarez, Hector Lombard; Joe Warren, Zoila Frausto; Pat Curran, Michael Chandler; Alexander Shlemenko, Ben Askren; Daniel Straus, Alexander Volkov and Cole Konrad.
The "Pitbull" brothers Patricio Freire and Patricky Freire, are still with the promotion.
One of the early criticisms of Bellator was the inactivity of its champions while new challengers were being determined in the tournaments. To alleviate the inactivity, a number of champions would compete in "super-fights" where the titles were not defended.
The popularity of the first Eddie Alvarez/Michael Chandler fight compelled Rebney to make an exception. A rematch would happen between the Alvarez and Chandler outside of the regular tournament structure. With a few other exceptions, Rebney was adamant that Bellator remained a place where "title shots are earned, and not given".
Bjorn Rebney's boss Kevin Kay would disagree.
The then President of the Spike television network felt that Rebney's vision put Bellator at a disadvantage. Kay felt that Bellator could not attract free agents if they felt competing in the tournaments were the only ways to compete in championship fights.
As a result of their differing opinions, in June 2014 Kevin Kay removed Bjorn Rebney as Chairman/CEO, and replaced him with Scott Coker. Tim Danaher also lost his titles of President and COO. Bellator would continue on, but not as tournament-focused as Bjorn Rebney envisioned.
